


You Must (Not) Let Go

by Recyclops9000



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, I'll have to see as I write it, Misery, eventually, maybe more than canon-typical violence...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 72,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25074136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recyclops9000/pseuds/Recyclops9000
Summary: What you hold onto defines who you are as a person. Sera Khan and Bastila Shan have settled into civilian life together. However, dark shadows from the past threaten to destabilize the happiness they have built with one another, sending them on a journey of self-discovery that will test the limits of their determination.
Relationships: Female Revan/Bastila Shan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

This time it was an adorable little Padawan, full of sunshine and excitement.

Sera Khan had been ambling home through the quiet residential streets of Skybase Station from the Market Quarter early that morning, bag of groceries in one hand and a box with a pastry each from their favourite bakery on the station in the other. The slight incline of the long street (some engineering thing she didn’t quite understand) made her muscles burn with the exertion but she liked the way it made the narrow walkways almost scenic. Not many people were about, most already at work or taken a shuttle to one of the planetary schools. Mrs Bima from next door had been kissing her grandson, Vani, goodbye for the day when she’d stumbled out their front door this morning, mismatched and creased clothing chosen more for comfort than for style and an old pair of slops on her feet. She hadn’t even bothered to wear her visor for her eye that had been damaged in the war. She was tired. Not crushingly so but she was glad that they had a couple days off with nothing to do other than a few chores and make sure they were on track for the jobs they’d been hired to do the following week.

She sighed and rolled her neck, easing the tension in her muscles. The unknown obstruction that had complicated their last job (maintenance of a large scale irrigation system on an agricultural planet) had turned out to be decades of leaves entering the filtration system and slowly transforming into a wad of very nutritious, very smelly sludge that had expelled itself very rapidly onto her and Bastila when they’d finally dislodged it. They’d advised the planet’s manager to check and clear to filters for debris every week (well, Sera had explained patiently and persistently while Bastila seethed and glared in the background) and headed straight for the Hawk’s refresher. When that had proven only mildly effective, their skin tinged a faint dirty green and the smell having worked its way into every pore, they set a course for home to make use of their apartment’s only slightly larger shower and the station’s more generous water supply. It had taken longer than either of them would care to admit and Sera still wasn’t completely certain that they were odour-free but, in the end, they had collapsed into bed, weary and glad to be home.

Sera smiled, thinking of waking up that morning next to Bastila, her face still pressed into the pillow where it had landed last night, hair in disarray, hand reaching blindly for Sera in the night, and felt a familiar swell of contentment in her heart.

That was how she walked into the kid, head down, thinking of the gorgeous brunette waiting at home for her to return with breakfast, not seeing the obstruction in her path before she ploughed into it.

“Shit, sorry, didn’t see you there,” Sera said, shifting the packet in her hand to steady the smaller individual, blurry and glitchy in the vision of her damaged eye.

“Oh, no, not a problem.” The individual, whom Sera could see was a young Twi’lek now -  _ In robes. Fuck. -  _ brightened when she saw who had bumped into her. “My Master always said that the Force would guide me if I trusted in its Will! I have been sent to find you and…”

“Look,” Sera said, tension building in her stomach, “we both really appreciate your concern but my partner and I are happy and peaceful in our life together and neither of us is interested in rejoining the Order.” Hopefully, the practised statement would be enough to dissuade the kid. Maybe it would even get them to stop asking this time.

“But, don’t you see? The Force wouldn’t have guided me here unless I was  _ meant _ to find you and convince you to once more take up your mantle as one of its Servants. How can a simple life with all its attendant drudgery ever compare to one filled with nothing but service to the Light Side of the Force?” The young Padawan’s face was glowing with fervent sincerity.

Sera winced. “I think you just answered your own question, kid.” She shook her head. “There is absolutely nothing that you can say to convince either of us of anything that hasn’t already been said by all the other Jedi that have come around pestering us. So…” She shrugged and started walking away, annoyed that the kid could get under her skin so easily.

The Padawan hurried to keep up. “You don’t understand. The Order cannot stand without its centre! You are the Jedi Revan, our only hope, the vessel of all our ambitions. You  _ have _ to come back and take your rightful place amongst the Jedi!”

Sera froze, her ears ringing, then whirled on the kid. “What did you just call me?”

“A True Jedi has no need of a concubine,” she continued, uncaring of the bomb she’d just thrown in Sera’s face. “Leave your life of licentiousness and attachment with Bastila Shan and help us cleanse the Order of its weakness and indecision. If she is worthy, then she will understand that you are called to something higher than the life of a mere drudge and will not mourn your loss but rejoice your ascension to a life of greatness, Revan!” the Padawan finished with a triumphant flourish.

“Stop calling me that!” she snapped. “That’s not…” She was struggling to breathe. “That’s not who I am anymore!” She started walking faster. Her legs burned from the effort. Their apartment seemed so fucking far away now. Who’s damn bright idea had it been to make these streets so fucking long?

“How can you deny it?” The Padawan’s voice was steadily rising. “Was it not you who crushed the Mandalorians when they threatened the Republic, fulfilling the promise of all your training, all that the Jedi Order imbued you with? Did you not show the Jedi Council the full breadth of your might, the wisdom of your leadership when you set yourself against the crumbling Republic? Or when you rose from the ashes to strike back at the Betrayer, Malak?” The kid didn’t seem in any hurry to stop. Where was that fucking door?! “You can’t run from what you are, Revan! You have wrought great change upon the galaxy before and you will do so again. It is the Will of the Force. You can’t hide from that!”

Sera reached their front door and slapped it open with a whimper of relief. “Oh yeah? Fucking watch me!” she yelled as the door snapped shut in the Padawan’s face.

She stood shaking in the entranceway to their tiny apartment, eyes closed and hands trembling as she listened intently for signs that her accoster was going to try and force an entry, force Sera to listen to her truth. There was silence for a frighteningly long time, or so it seemed, the weight of the young Padawan’s presence pressing heavily onto Sera, crushing her slowly. Then there was a barely audible sigh and then the muffled tapping of the Padawan’s boots against the non-slip flooring of the station.

Sera fell back against the door, legs boneless as the adrenaline drained out of her. She panted, face damp with sweat, feeling like she’d run a marathon. She shakily pushed herself off the door, kicked off her shoes and walked into the main living area. Bastila was waiting for her there on the couch, dark hair curling softly around her shoulders and face as she read her datapad, bare legs that had so often driven Sera insane tucked neatly under her. But Sera wasn’t able to enjoy any of it. Her heart was still racing from her encounter and her mind was buzzing with a thousand anxious thoughts.

Bastila looked up. “Are you alright, love? I can feel,” she tapped her chest, “your heart is pounding. Did something happen?”

Sera opened her mouth, struggling to force the words out. “Just, uh…” How to explain? How to explain when she was still trying to process it herself? “Just the walk, I guess,” she said weakly. She turned to put the groceries down, annoyed with herself for not being able to tell her partner what happened, still unable to do so despite all of her self-directed annoyance.

“Hmm… Ah, well.” Bastila didn’t sound convinced but she dropped the subject, trusting Sera to tell her if it was important. Sera hated herself for betraying that trust over something so trivial as an annoying encounter with a Jedi. “I was just reading the note Jolee sent,” she continued, indicating the datapad in her hands. “Can you believe they have him teaching ethics to the older students? I can’t imagine that he doesn’t skip out on them half the time.”

Sera smiled weakly and retrieved two plates for their pastries. “Tea or caf, babe?”

“Tea, if you don’t mind, love,” she said with a smile before going back to her reading. Sera popped a bag in her own mug as well, knowing that her brain needed the opposite of alertness right now. She closed her eyes and spent the time their tea was steeping focusing on the distant noise of the station going about its business, the feel of the countertop beneath her palms, the quiet, familiar sound of Bastila breathing.  _ “You can’t run from what you are, Revan!” _ She flinched, a chill running down her spine.  _ Why do they always approach me when I’m on my own? _ Ignoring the kath hounds trying to tear each other apart in her stomach, Sera removed the bags from each mug and took them and the plates over to where her girlfriend was sitting. Who frowned when Sera took the single armchair instead of snuggling up next to her as she usually would.

“Something happened. I can tell.” Bastila shifted in her seat to reach over and run gentle fingers through Sera’s hair. “Tell me so we can deal with this together like we always do,” she finished softly, cupping Sera’s cheek in the palm of her hand and running her thumb over Sera’s lips.

Sera closed her eyes and leaned into her beloved’s hand, soaking in the warmth of everything they’d built between the two of them. She opened her eyes to respond… and caught sight of the faint scars ringing Bastila’s neck from where Malak had chained her up and tortured her and tortured her, brutally for days, until he broke her so much that she forswore everything she believed in, turning on everything she loved in a black, depressive rage.  _ My fault. My former friend. My route that got intercepted. My fault.  _ She barely caught herself before she flinched guiltily away from her partner's touch and sat back slowly in her chair, pulling herself out of Bastila's reach.

None of this escaped her sharp-eyed partner’s notice. Bastila was staring at her intently, clearly trying to work out what the fuck her girlfriend’s damage was. Sera fought hard not to squirm under the scrutiny, reminding herself that Bastila didn’t mean to make her feel like she was being taken apart like an insect. It just felt that way.

“There was a, uh…” She swallowed.  _ This is stupid. It wasn’t a big deal! _ “There was a Jedi kid trying to entice us back and it, uh…” She ran a hand through her hair. “It freaked me out, I guess,” she mumbled. “I told her no,” she finished as if the answer would have been anything else.

“What, again? And here?” Bastila sat up, alarmed, and turned sharply towards their front door as if expecting to see the intrusive Jedi waiting to strike. “They really are getting desperate, aren’t they? I wonder if the rumours of Jedi being hunted by Sith assassins are true?”

“Can we  _ not _ talk about the Sith today, please?” Sera said, blood draining from her cheeks. She could feel Bastila giving her that considering look again. “Please can we just enjoy today for what it is?”

Bastila was silent for a long moment. “Alright… But I want to get to the bottom of this later, love.”

Sera sighed. She loved Bastila’s stubbornness. It was one of the integral parts of her personality and it was frequently very, very sexy. But it could also be a damned pain sometimes.  _ Damn Jedi, ruining my day. _ But even as she thought it, she couldn’t silence the tiny voice within her saying that it was all her fault, every single bad thing that was happening to her. And that she deserved it.

They ate their breakfast in silence, Bastila nibbling at her pastry while casting worried glances at Sera who merely sipped at her now cold tea. Sera knew that she wasn’t helping things but she was having trouble finding the strength to kick her anxieties in the ass and act more like herself.  _ If that really is yourself and not just a mask you’ve constructed to fool everyone into liking you. _ Sera gritted her teeth. She also wished that her brain would shut the fuck up!

“Are you going to eat that?” Bastila’s sudden query startled Sera out of her reverie.

She sat for a moment, uncertain how to respond. “We were going to watch a holo later, weren’t we?” she said awkwardly. “I’ll keep it for then. I don’t think I’ll enjoy it now.” She pasted her best attempt at a playful scowl on her face, trying desperately to be the woman Bastila fell in love with. “Stop trying to steal food out of my mouth, woman.”

A relieved smile spread across Bastila’s face. Apparently, her weak attempt at a joke had been enough. Bastila grabbed her hand and gave it a tight squeeze, projecting as much affection as she could. “I thought what was yours was mine, darling?” she said lightly. Then she sobered. “Are you  _ sure _ that you’re alright?”

“Of course,” Sera lied. “Please,” she said to Bastila’s unimpressed face. “I can’t at the moment.”

“Okay,” Bastila said in that deceptively light tone of hers. She looked like she wanted to say something, Sera could practically feel the words on her lips, but she merely shook her head. “Mrs Bima wanted to know if you wouldn’t mind helping Vani with his history project later this evening after he’s back from limmie practice.”

Sera blinked. “Yeah, sure. Although, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”

“Are we really going to do this?” Bastila gestured back and forth between the two of them. “Are we really going to just ignore whatever’s bothering you for the entire day?”

“It has nothing to do with you, Bastila,” Sera said through clenched teeth. “Leave it be.”

Bastila stared at her in disbelief. “ _ It has nothing to do with me? _ Since when has that  _ ever  _ been true?” She pointed an accusatory finger at Sera. “You are the one who has always insisted that we be open and honest with each other -- for the good of our bond, I might add! -- and yet suddenly something that bothers you enough to ruin your appetite is “none of my business”.”

“I--!” Sera rubbed her hands over her face. Her heart was racing and she was having trouble catching her breath. “The Jedi from before wasn’t after  _ us _ . They were only interested in…” She gestured vaguely. “You know…” She shivered. The whole topic was making her insides go cold.

“They wanted Revan?” Bastila’s eyes flashed. “How dare they bring that up after so long! I have half a mind to send the Jedi Council a strongly worded letter!”

“What the hell good is that going to do, Bastila?” Sera snapped. “If it’s not them, it’s going to be some poor kid seeking revenge for watching their parents get blown to bits in front of them!”

Bastila was quiet for a long moment. There was a look on her face that Sera couldn’t quite read and she squirmed as Bastila scrutinized her head to toe, probing their bond looking for who knew what. After a final comforting nudge, the pressure against her mind retreated and Sera gasped in relief, hugging her arms to her chest to try to get rid of the sensation of being dissected.

“You don’t think,” Bastila said hesitantly, worry colouring her voice, “that it might not be a good idea to maybe give therapy another try?”

Sera blanched. “Why? Do you think I need it?” she said, remembering what had happened the single, solitary time she had gone to the therapist recommended by the woman who had helped Bastila with the aftereffects of being tortured by Malak. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, not liking the leaden feeling settling over her.

“It can’t hurt to try, can it, love?” Bastila said gently. “I don’t like seeing you this way.”

“How do you even know that it’ll do anything?” she cried. “What happens when I explain everything to a therapist and at the end of it all they shrug and say “sorry, can’t help an actual literal monster”. And that’s assuming they don’t call the police then and there!”

“Sera--!” Bastila sighed and rubbed her eyes in frustration. “You are not a monster. There are far worse people out there than you ever were.”

“Who?” she demanded. “Go on, name them! I want to hear about all these so-called people who are worse than the person who dragged the galaxy into war and ruined the lives of hundreds of billions of people!”

Sera waited and watched Bastila search for an answer before throwing up her hands helplessly. She pointed her finger at her lover in grim triumph.

“See!”

“This doesn’t prove anything!” Bastila snapped. “Just because I can’t think of anybody, doesn’t mean there aren’t millions of terrible people out there!”

“ _ Somebody _ has to be the worst person, Bastila, and that person just so happens to be me!” She poked a finger at her girlfriend. “Just because you’re blinded by your feelings for me, doesn’t change anything!”

“What do you want me to do about that then?” Bastila said, slapping her hand away. “Do you want me to leave you just to satisfy your twisted sense of morality, is that it?”

“Maybe you should!” Sera’s blood ran cold the instant her own words hit her ears. Bastila stared at her in utter shock. Sera felt something crumpling inside herself and she pushed herself out of her chair and towards the front door rather than face Bastila’s answer. She needed to get out of here. She needed to keep moving, to feel like she was achieving something useful.

“I’m going to get the grinder pump from Dua Sovv’s place for the Pashna job,” she said, snatching her wallet from the counter where she’d left it and pushing her feet roughly into the old slops.

“Don’t think you can just walk away from me after saying something like that!” Sera felt a faint tendril of the Force winding around her to hold her in place. She shook it off and opened the door.

“I just need to cool down. I’ll be back later.” She stepped outside hurriedly. Behind her, she heard something crash against their door accompanied by a frustrated growl.

The trip down to the hangar passed by in a flash, the turbolift doors snapping shut behind her as she strode quickly towards the Hawk, her hurried footsteps drowning out the rapid thudding of her heart before it even crossed her mind to worry about running into the Jedi kid again. But no one bothered her and she was away from the station, stars streaking past the Ebon Hawk as she initiated her jump, in no time at all.

~~~

She was not an hour into her trip when she realized what a fucking idiot she was. Her heart rate had eventually slowed and her sense of accomplishing something useful well ahead of time had faded, leaving her alone in an empty ship in her “day off” clothes with no way to turn back and no way to send a message home until the ship completed its calculated jump in another couple hours. She let her face sink into her hands and groaned. The day would be nearly over by the time she made it back to Skybase Station to face her fuming girlfriend.  _ That’s if she’s still there. _ Sera shivered and pressed her hands more tightly against her face, trying to hold the panic and despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Statement: Master! I did not realize that we were scheduled to make another trip so soon after our last thrilling adventure in murdering foetid plant life and moving heavy farming equipment.” She jumped a little, the assassin droid’s quiet approach taking her by surprise in her gloomy state. He regarded her with his baleful red eyes. “Are we on our way to slaughter something? Are we to finally break our tedious streak of peace and solitude and engage in some uncomplicated violence? Oh,  _ please  _ say it is so, Master!”

A furious whistling from knee height stopped her from answering as T3 butted into HK angrily, squawking out a reprimand.

“Threat: Flee you little tin can before the Master lets me send you to the scrap pile!” HK-47 aimed a heavy, metallic kick at the smaller droid, which T3 nimbly dodged, beeping and chattering indignantly at his murderous companion.

Sera groaned, then sighed. Then groaned again when something struck her. “You’re both here! And not at the apartment!”

T3 and HK’s heads spun around from where they stood by the navcomputer, HK midway through an nth attempt to pry the disk of T3’s head from his body. T3 booped a query, his head wobbling in HK’s grasp.

“Statement: The trash can is correct, Master. Is it not your usual practice to leave us to languish in solitude and disuse here on this ship during one of your days of fornication with your human female?” He tilted his head at Sera. “It is a cruel fate you bestow upon us, Master.”

“No, that wasn’t--!” She sighed heavily, then thumped herself heavily on the skull with her knuckles. “Rocks! This thing is full of nothing but rocks!” she muttered angrily at herself. “There’s been talk about Jedi getting attacked and I  _ left Bastila alone in our apartment _ ! I can’t believe how stupid I am!”

Sera could hear his servos and motors working as he considered her. “Query: But, Master, Jedi get attacked at a frequency far surpassing that of other people. That is why they might attract the services of excellently designed and lethally efficient protocol droids, Master.”

She rubbed her face, feeling tired. “It’s probably nothing. Juhani just sent us a note about some odd rumours she’d heard, which she wouldn’t do if she didn’t think things were serious.” She didn’t bring up all the weird, aggressive comments she and Bastila had received in the years since they’d left the Order. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly, trying to squash down the sudden cold feeling in her stomach. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing,” she repeated, failing to convince herself. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

The little astromech booped worriedly at her.

“Don’t worry, T3,” she said, pulling herself together. “We’ll be back to check on her in no time.”

An evil glint entered HK’s mechanical eyes. “Statement: The perpetrators of these heinous attacks are truly a menace to the fabric of society. We should hunt them down and murder them, Master.”

“I’m not looking to borrow trouble, HK.”

“Query: Is that why the human female kicked you out, Master?”

“She didn’t kick me out!” she said, indignantly. “I--”  _ Ran away like a chump because a kid spoiled my day. And now my head’s starting to ache because I didn’t eat breakfast…  _ She scowled to cover her sudden sense of loss and shame. “Besides, that barely came up.”

T3 whistled an innocent query at her.

Sera winced. “No, I wasn’t planning on going out. That’s why I look like this.”

“Commentary: I understand, Master. It can be difficult for those of us built for violence and death to adjust to these trying times of peace and prosperity.”

“I’ve been doing alright,” she grumbled.

“Clarification: That may be so, Master. However, my servos do so long to engage in the occasional bloodbath! Is that so unreasonable, Master? Can you not find it in your heart to start a teensy-weensy genocide, Master? For your loyal droid?”

Sera glared at the droid, ignoring the familiar twinge of guilt that she was denying him something that was only a part of his programming. Programming that  _ she _ had created.  _ Fuck.  _ “Absolutely not!”

HK sighed dramatically. “Resignation: Very well, Master. I shall abide by your wishes and wait for the rust to take me.”

~~~

Dua Sovv took one look at her sorry appearance and laughed in her face.

“Girlfriend kick you out?”

Sera put on a good-humoured grimace even though she felt like nothing more than bursting into tears. “Is it that obvious?”  _ Like, is it tattooed onto my forehead or something… _

They grinned around the pipe held between their teeth, fragrant smoke curling around Sera like a hug. “Kid, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come to my shop in their pyjamas.”

“You think I sleep like  _ this _ ,” she plucked at her tatty t-shirt, “when I have such a pretty girl in bed with me every night?”

Dua roared with laughter. “I think that pretty girl of yours adores you and doesn’t give two shits how you look!”

Try as she might, Sera couldn’t stop a choked sob escaping her. “Fuck, I don’t know, Dua. I’ve been a real ass this time.” She slapped at her ragged form in frustration. “I mean, look at me! I say stupid things and then I run off, half-dressed, without any breakfast, without my visor so I can’t fucking  _ see _ anything properly! It’s a fucking miracle I’m not running around with my literal ass hanging out the way I’m acting!” She thumped her head down on the countertop, the coldness of the metal giving her something to focus on rather than her own painful stupidity.

A strong hand patted her comfortingly on the shoulder. “Why don’t you use the comm station in my office to call home and apologise to Bastila while I get my crew to load up your order onto your ship. Go on,” the hand gave her a firm nudge until she stood up again, “it’s through there.” Dua indicated the way she should go with a jerk of their thumb as they ambled towards the parts yard out back. “Grinder pump, right?”

Sera rubbed away the moisture that had leaked out of her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Yeah, the X80 series one, not that fucking float thing they had before that clogged up every two seconds!”

“I’m glad you have strong plumbing opinions, my friend. And remember!” they yelled as the disappeared out the door into the sunny yard, “It was all your fault and you’re very, very sorry, even if it wasn’t!”

_ Oh, I’m  _ very _ clear whose fault this all is… _ She shook her head roughly, then shook out her limbs for good measure, as the familiar cold, leaden feeling stole over her again. Taking a deep breath, she stepped gingerly into Dua’s office, feeling awkward intruding on someone else’s space. The place was piled up with more flimsiplast than Sera felt completely comfortable being so near the many parts filled with highly combustible fluids only a flimsy bit of drywall away but it clearly didn’t bother Dua one bit, so who was she to judge? She gathered up the stack of overstuffed binders atop Dua’s comm station and set them down in a neat pile next to it before keying in the code for their home comm. And waited. And waited. The shrill, repetitive ringing of the dialling tone ate away at her insides the longer it went on unanswered. Sera tucked her arms tightly against herself to stop herself from hitting the disconnect button. If she wanted to hear her lover’s voice (which she did desperately!), she would just have to suck it up and wait.

The comm station clicked and the tone stopped playing. Unit unavailable, please try again later. Sera swallowed thickly. She shifted uncomfortably side to side. There were plenty of reasons that Bastila wouldn't be there to take her call. Fuck, she wasn't an indentured servant, bound to stay stuck in their apartment, waiting patiently for her Master's call! Especially not after she ran out of there like a… She was probably just taking a nap or had gone out for a walk or something. But the image of an empty apartment, all of Bastila’s belongings packed up neatly for removal, had wormed its way deep into her skull and she couldn’t do anything to stop the idea that Bastila had left her twisting her insides into a tight knot.

The sound of Dua clattering back into the shop startled Sera back to reality, the sudden noise granting her a reprieve from her own spiralling thoughts. Shuffling back into the shop, she arranged her face into a pleasant smile, hoping her expression wouldn’t give away the knots of anxiety twisting up her insides.

“There was no response.” She decided that it was better to steer the conversation in a direction that she wanted rather than rely on others to avoid uncomfortable topics. “She’s probably gone out for a run or doing some errands. I’m sure she’ll be back later,” she said, repeating her earlier thoughts more for her own benefit than for anyone else.

Dua frowned. “You sure you don’t want to try again, kid? It’s no trouble.”

The thought of calling again, enduring the shrill sound of the dialling tone droning on and on, waiting for Bastila to pick up, not knowing if she would, not knowing what she’d say if she did… “No, thanks, I, uh, I’d rather get home quick as possible and apologize in person.” Sera gave her best attempt at a sheepish smile. “I’m sure I’m in enough trouble as it is without being late for dinner as well.”

“If you think that’s best…” They fixed Sera with an intense look, concern in their black eyes. “You know I’ll, like, be there for you if anything happens or anything. You know, if you, like,” they rubbed the back of their neck, clearly not completely comfortable with being so emotionally open, “need to talk about stuff or anything, I’ll be willing to, you know, lend an ear. And stuff.”

The clear concern from someone who was really only an acquaintance, even if a very good one, warmed Sera’s heart and helped to clear some of the misery from her mind. “Thanks, mate. I really appreciate that.”

Dua cleared their throat and waved her thanks aside, radiating embarrassment. They waved Sera over to the till and rang up the cost of the part as well as the fee for Dua’s crew to move it into the Hawk’s cargo hold. Sera’s thoughts churned as she transferred the money from her and Bastila’s shared business account, thinking of Dua’s offer of a sympathetic ear and Bastila’s suggestion of therapy.

“You ever done something that you regret?” she asked, head down, eyes fixed on the receipt she was signing.

“What, you mean like cheat on your girlfriend or somethi-- okay, I guess not,” Dua said, cutting themselves off when they caught the look on Sera’s face. “How bad are we talking here?”

_ I shouldn’t have brought this up. _ “Uh, I guess, kind of… Well, you see…”

“Khan,” they said when she trailed off, “have you done time?”

She smiled thinly, letting them come to their own conclusions. “I tried to see a therapist about it once but, uh…” She let out a short bitter laugh, remembering how hard she’d had to screw up her courage to actually go see the fucker. “I lucked out and got a weirdo.”

Dua seemed to be considering something. Whatever it was was making their face contort into all manner of expressions of consternation. Finally, they crossed their arms and sighed.

“This doesn’t go further than us, okay? Not that I really care, but it’s not my story. Okay?” they repeated, waiting until Sera nodded solemnly, wondering what the hell was coming next. “Right. You know my older brother, Jae?”

Sera thought for a moment. “The one whose youngest had a sickly kid in the hospital? How are they doing, by the way?”

“They’re fine and don’t interrupt my story, kid. Now, this was all a really long time ago but when he was younger Jae made some bad decisions and got involved with some very bad people doing very bad things. He got out of it but the courts didn’t wanna listen to the sob story of a miner’s son who shot someone!” Dua puffed angrily on their pipe, creating a cloud of smoke around them, clearly still peeved at the treatment that their brother had received.

“Anyway!” they continued, “He served his sentence and came out the other end more fucked up than he went in. We all sent him to the best therapists we could afford but he kept getting judgemental pricks. It was, uh…” Dua frowned. “It was a bit bad there for a while. He couldn’t keep down a job, his marriage was failing. Thought we might lose him for permanent. Then he got lucky one day talking to some guy he just met on the street. Turns out he and a couple of his buddies run a support group for ex-convicts like themselves where they can talk about what they’re going through without any judgement about what they’ve done. It really helped him a lot. So, um, you know...” They gestured vaguely.

Sera rubbed the back of her neck thoughtfully, a faint glimmer of hope within the darkness of her mind. “A support group for ex-convicts might not be a bad idea…”

She nearly swallowed her own tongue when she received a hearty slap to the back. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, kid. After all,” Dua grinned around their pipe, “it’s them that start wars and get kids killed that are the  _ real _ criminals!”

~~~

“Query: Back home to endure a tirade from the Master’s mistress, Master?”

Sera rubbed at her face, weary from the effort of maintaining a cheery disposition until she could retreat to the solitude of her ship. “Yeah, I’ve wasted enough time today as it is.”  _ And I’m starving _ .  _ And I’m tired and I just wanna get home and cuddle with my woman and have everything be normal again, dammit. _ “No, wait. There’s a trading depot near here, isn’t there?”

HK consulted the Ebon Hawk’s charts of the region. “Statement: Unfortunately, Master, the one nearby appears to be closed for the owner’s holy day. However, there is an establishment roughly halfway along our route back to Skybase Station. It would not take long for us to get there.”

Sera glanced over at the map. “It won’t add too much time to our trip home?”

“Statement: Affirmative, Master. The detour will barely add ten minutes to our trip.”

Sera chewed on her lip.  _ Plus another ten or so minutes to dock, make my purchase and leave. _ “Set the course, HK.”

~~~

The trip to the trading depot was spent in frustrated anticipation. Once she decided on the detour, she was anxious to get her extra shopping trip over and done with. And yet she had to sit for over an hour stewing in her own boredom and increasing annoyance at her own decisions. When she started to doubt the wisdom of her little side trip she decided that it was time to ensure that the ship’s pantry was as empty as she thought it was. Surely there must be  _ something _ to eat on board, some emergency rations or forgotten snacks, something! But there wasn’t, no matter how many crates she overturned or environmental suits coated in leaf slime that she tossed aside, sending a squawking T3 careening out of the hold in alarm. All she could find was a suspect ration bar with the expiration date conveniently worn off that made an odd sound when she tossed it back into the depths of a drawer from whence it came.

Her rampage through the ship had thankfully taken a fair chunk of time and she was hopping out of the barely open loading ramp and walking as fast as she could to the depot after reminding herself to not run like a weirdo, no matter how much she was champing at the bit to get home. Luckily -- luckily for her, probably not for the depot -- there were no crowds for her to contend with, no long queues it seemed like, just a few grannies on hoverchairs and parents with little kids. After some searching, she found where they kept the bunches of flowers and potted plants. She looked along the rows and rows of blossoms and for a moment she was stuck. Was she being stupid and wasting time? Would a simple bunch of flowers really be enough to make up for what she’d said and what she’d done? She stood, thinking about everything her relationship with Bastila meant to her, running her eyes over more different kinds of flowers than she’d ever seen in her life. Did she really want to come back home empty-handed, with no sign that she’d been reflecting on her own behaviour?

Quickly scanning the selection before her, Sera selected the most perfect bunch she could find, what looked like wildflowers, blue in colour. The price meant that she would be unable to buy something to eat on the way back but that would be fine. She’d be home soon anyway.

She deposited the bunch that she’d picked at an empty till, the teller glanced over her ragged appearance and the bouquet she was buying.

“Argument with your wife?” the teller said with a genial smile. “Don’t worry, honey. If this doesn’t work, you can always buy her jewellery. I know it always works on me!”

Sera smiled thinly and paid, picking up her flowers and walking quickly out of the depot, not wanting to be reminded of why she was out here on her day off like an asshole. She returned to the ship, setting a sublight course for where she needed to enter hyperspace for her trip home and sat back, looking at the stars surrounding her. She looked at the flowers where they lay on the console in front of her. It wasn’t as easy to see in the dim lighting of the Hawk’s cockpit as it had been in the bright, flat lights of the trading depot but she could still make out the hue of the blossoms, blue shifting to grey and back, like the sky on a cloudy day, the occasional bursts of sunlight breaking through all the more brilliant for its absence. Sera leaned forward, her nose barely touching the soft petals as she inhaled their sweet fragrance.

“They even smell kinda like her...”

A shrilly whistled query behind her made her start. T3 was poking his head into the cockpit, obviously having heard her morose murmurings.

“No, no, I didn’t need anything. I was just, uh, talking to myself.”  _ Like a weirdo. _ She waved a hand at the little droid. “You go on back to what you were doing.”

He booped an affirmative and trundled off, chirping something about a signal that he’d detected. She settled back down and checked the time. There was still a little ways to go before they could jump to hyperspace. Then another couple hours and she’d have to face the music. She shivered, thinking about an empty apartment, maybe a terse note informing her of her failings. No! She took a deep breath and expelled it. Bastila wouldn’t do that to her. They had promised each other right back when they were first getting to know each other. Bastila wouldn’t just leave without telling her first. Sera snorted.  _ She would say it directly to my face, make sure I knew  _ exactly _ what I did wrong. _ She shook her head to get the thought out. Bastila wasn’t cruel and they had promised to always be open and honest with each other. They would have killed each other all the way back on Dantooine if they hadn’t. She wouldn’t just take Sera’s thoughtless words about them breaking up at face value without them both sitting down and discussing it properly first.

Sera let out a little sob, slapping a hand over her mouth to stop the sound alerting either of the droids. She didn’t want Bastila to leave her! Why had she said something that fucking brainless in the first place? Just because some  _ stupid kid _ came around asking for… She shivered again, harder this time. Her chest felt icy cold and she couldn’t breathe. She tucked her head between her knees and rocked back and forth, waiting for the feeling to go away. She smacked her hand hard against the divider between the pilots’ seats.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why can’t I deal with this? Why can’t I push it down anymore? It wasn’t like this before, when we first left the Order. _ The flutter in her gut told her that that was not completely true. There had been that time, that single, solitary time, when something that Bastila had said during, well, “adult fun time” that had cut right through her, reducing her to a quivering, sobbing mess before she even had time to think. It wasn’t even like Bastila had said anything particularly mean while in-character but Sera couldn’t even  _ think _ the words anymore! Which was really, really irritating because Evil Scoundrel and Righteous Hero was a really fun game to play!

It was after this that Bastila had first suggested that Sera might need to talk to someone. She hadn’t even needed to push that hard, as Sera had been the one that had urged Bastila to seek professional help after they’d rescued her from Malak. So she dutifully made an appointment with the man Bastila’s therapist had recommended, a well-respected individual with many years of experience dealing with a variety of patients, even though the thought of talking to someone about her genuine, innermost feelings went against every single instinct inside of her. Opening up to Bastila had been hard enough. Opening up to a complete stranger made her want to tear her own skin off! But she’d gone because it was important. And he’d…

_ “You’d be  _ lucky  _ if someone were to murder you in your bed after what you and your kind have done to the galaxy. You and all those that shelter you deserve far worse than you can ever receive. Parasites like you drag everybody down!” _

She dug her nails into her scalp, hoping the pain would stop his words and the threat behind them from ringing in her head. But they wouldn’t stop, round and round and round. She started laughing uncontrollably, the bleak mirth vibrating out of the knot of her gut. Not even biting down hard on her fist could stifle the sound and it wasn’t long before there was a hesitant boop behind her.

“He didn’t even know that I was a…” Choking despair cut off her sentence in a sob. She thumped her head on the ship’s control panel to force herself to focus. “He just thought I was Jedi. If he’d known the full truth…” She pulled her legs up against her chest, making herself into as tight a ball as she could. “I can’t go on like this, T3.”

T3 whistled in alarm, surging forward against the cockpit chair as if he were trying to jump into her lap.

“Woah! Hey, I didn’t mean it like that!” Sera patted the disk of his head soothingly, gently pushing him back before he could hurt himself or the ship. “I’m not going to… I don’t know what that would do to Bastila.”

The little astromech settled back, squawking bossily at her, waggling his head back and forth. Sera couldn’t stop a slightly soggy laugh escaping her lips.

“Did Bastila teach you how to do that?”

T3 gave a huff that did indeed look very much like her beloved, although Sera was fairly certain that it should be physically impossible for him to do that and made a mental note to give him a thorough check for any coolant leaks. Letting her mind drift back to her predicament, she scrubbed a hand through her hair and sighed. She couldn’t live her life like this, jumping at shadows, acting like a fucking idiot over nothing, and the thought of losing Bastila over something so stupid… The agony that knifed through her left her breathless.

“I guess there’s nothing for it,” she muttered. “T3, would you mind making a note to remind me to make a few calls when we get home. I’m going to give this fucking talking thing another try.” She wearily rubbed her face. She felt drained and exhausted. “I haven’t eaten anything, have I?” She rose, groaning as she stretched out her stiff back. “Okay, I’m going to go take care of that. You tell me if anything exciting happens.”

She pottered into the main hold, remembering halfway that there was only the weird ration bar thing on the ship. Grumbling, she rooted it out of the drawer she tossed it into and tore the wrapper open with some difficulty, revealing a bar of an unappetising pink colour. It passed a sniff test, not really smelling like much of anything, so Sera gave it a tentative lick. And sighed. It was  _ fine _ but it wasn’t going to win any awards by any stretch of the imagination. She bit into it, wrestling with the bar when it refused to break off cleanly in her mouth.

“Statement: Hold still, Master. I shall blast all that refuse to bend to your will.”

“You don’t have to point a gun at me. It’s not an enemy. It’s just… chewy.” And was transforming into a slick, spitty mess where she was gnawing on it. She got a chunk into her mouth, hands and face smeared with saliva-dissolved food, feeling like a toddler in need of a good hosing down.

“Cautionary: Even so, Master, it is good for your loyal droid to always be aware of threats and dangers to your person. After all, there are many who would love nothing more than to see you dead in a ditch, Master, and it is my job to slaughter them before they become a problem.”

Sera swallowed thickly around a chewed-up wad of protein bar. “I’m trying not to think about shit like that right now,” she said, taking another bite. Her stomach felt heavy and acidic.

“Statement: I do so hope you do soon, Master. There is nothing I would love more than the chance to gun down a sea of enemies in a hail of blasterfire!” HK’s eyes were glimmering gleefully at the thought of wanton destruction.

“Haven’t we already had this conversation? Like, today?” On second thought, maybe the uncomfortable feeling in her stomach was just the protein bar, judging from the unpleasant aftertaste and chalky texture in her mouth. Maybe some water would help wash it down.

“Explanation: Perhaps I was merely hopeful--”

T3 came skidding into the main hold, chattering about a distress signal not far from where they were to enter into hyperspace. The ship of a minor Hutt had suffered a system failure and was being harassed by local thugs. T3 relayed this while they followed him through to the comms room. Sera performed a quick scan of the area around them, quickly finding the ship, listed as the Glory of Nal Hutta IV, and a couple small fighters as the message had said on the edge of a nearby asteroid belt by a dense cluster of rocks.

“Okay, this shouldn’t take too long. T3, relay the distress signal to the closest local authority with a note that we’re assisting. HK, you plug into the guns and scare the fighters off while I take us in closer,” Sera said, popping the last bite of her gross “breakfast” into her mouth.

“Exclamation: Oh, Master! You do care! You do!”

“I said scare them off!” Sera yelled after droid trotting happily towards the ship’s turrets. “I don’t want you killing some local kid who just has nothing better to do!” She stepped into the cockpit, slipping her headset on and ignoring HK’s vocal grumblings echoing through the ship. When she received confirmation from T3 that the message had been passed on, she switched over from autopilot, cancelling their route into hyperspace, and moved them closer to the distressed ship, keeping an eye out for any signs of enemy reinforcements while the distress signal looped in the background.

“Glory of Nal Hutta, this is Ebon Hawk responding to your distress call. Do you copy?” She repeated herself in imperfect Huttese just in case.

The comm clicked over, indicating that their hail had been received and a response was being transmitted, but all that came through was garbled static. It almost sounded like they were receiving nothing but dead air but there was something else, something that sounded like speech but not quite.

“T3, can you clean that up what’s coming in on that frequency? It doesn’t sound like nobody’s there,” Sera said, something about the rhythm of the static tickling something in her brain. “Okay, HK, I’m going to take us in quick.”

She gunned the engines, the beleaguered ship coming quickly into sight. Sera was able to make out a cloud of smoke clinging to the ship’s mass, twin flashes of red darting across its hull, as they sped overhead, Sera inverting the Hawk to afford HK a better shot at the fighters. And then they were passed in an instant, streaking off into space.

“Statement: Master, there is something very odd about the way--”

The light for the comm flickered. “Hold that thought, HK,” she said as she pulled the ship around for another pass, “I think T3 got through to them. Hello, Glory of Nal Hutta! Having a bad day?”

There was a long pause, during which Sera could hear T3 booping in confusion in the other room. Then a shrill, echoing crackle as the channel popped to life once again.

“Greetings, Ebon Hawk, was it? Yeah, we were having a bit of trouble with the engines when these two insects started pestering us. You mind lending a hand?”

“Not a problem, Glory of Nal Hutta.” They streaked overhead again, the hard crack of the Hawk’s turrets ringing out once more. “Having a problem with your comms? You’re echoing on my end.”

“Statement: The fighters are gone, Master.”

“I guess those fighters must’ve knocked something loose when they were firing on us,” the other voice said, that strange echo still underlying their transmission.

“Good job, HK,” Sera said over the Hawk’s internal comm as she slowed the ship and brought them around to drift alongside the other ship. “You’re all clear, Glory of Nal Hutta. We’ve relayed your distress signal and will wait with you until you can get up and running again.”

Another long pause, the annoyingly familiar static almost resolving itself while T3 whistled about interference in the background. “Greatly appreciate it, Ebon Hawk.”

“Negatory: Master.” HK sounded almost hesitant. “The fighters disappeared into the asteroid belt without returning fire. I can no longer detect them on the Ebon Hawk’s scanners.”

“Weird…” Sera muttered, jerking back on the controls when the nose of the other ship appeared large and very, very near through the cockpit’s viewport. “You’re getting a little close there, Glory of Nal Hutta,” she said, tendrils of smoke gravitating towards the Ebon Hawk’s larger mass.

There was a tootle of triumph from T3 as the comm clicked on. “--not come any-- --! I-- trap!”

“Warning: Master! Something has made contact with our hull!”

The tortured sound of metal piercing metal hit Sera’s ears as the pieces of the puzzle fell together in her mind. “T3, don’t let them get into the computer!” she yelled as the ship’s controls pulled themselves out of her hands, the hyperdrive already revving up. Then she was slammed back into her seat and they were gone.

~~~

“Try hailing them again. See if you can get through.”

Sera stared at the rear of the Glory of Nal Hutta in front of them, her engines blazing over the top of the Ebon Hawk’s hull. Their first jump hadn’t lasted long, barely a minute. The other ship had pulled them along… somewhere before making another short jump, repeating this pattern for the last quarter of an hour.

“Statement: Master, there is no use. Our communications systems are being jammed internally by the device attached to our ship. It is highly probable that the same is true of the Glory of Nal Hutta.”

Sera groaned, letting her face fall into her hands. “I should have known… That sound was so familiar, aargh!” She avoided thinking too hard about why she was so familiar with the pattern of jammed audio transmissions, not being the kind of thing that got passed on in the basic military training that she could remember. “What a perfect end to the day,” she muttered. “Do we have any idea where we’re being taken?”

T3 chimed in over the still-functioning internal comms. Whatever was controlling the ship was not transmitting the navigational information to the ship’s main system, merely sending the command for when the hyperdrives were to engage and disengage. T3 surmised (technically he presented the information in terms of probability but Sera knew what he meant) that rapid jumps performed in seemingly random directions were an attempt to scramble the ship’s ability to keep track of its own position. But that wasn’t going to happen! (Sera could hear his indignant chittering all the way in the cockpit) As long as he stayed hooked up to the Hawk’s main computer, there was no way that their combined processing power wouldn’t be able to chart their progress!

Sera was chewing this over when the hyperdrive whirred to life and she felt the ship jerk sharply under her feet as they entered hyperspace. She took a deep breath, her stomach twisting. Wherever the hell they were going, they were being taken further and further away from home.

“Okay, let’s do what we can to get this doohickey off the ship before we end up on the other side of the galaxy.” She rubbed her forehead, trying to recall what she knew about the ship’s schematics. “If it’s jamming our communications internally, that means it’s probably connected in somewhere by you, right?”

After a booped affirmative, Sera and HK traversed the short distance to the other room where they lifted up a floor panel near where T3 had plugged himself in, exposing the inner workings of the ship’s main computer. Asking a grumbling HK to hold up a light for her, Sera crawled down as far as she could into the tight, hot crevice of cables and whirring fans.

“A little more to the left, HK.”

“Statement: Of course, Master. It is my one joy in life, after slaying your enemies and toiling away to find you again, Master, to be your sentient lampstand.”

“Oh, shush.” She reached blindly under a tangled mess of power cables and found the bulge where the device had punched through the outer hull. Feeling around for a way to remove the plating, she began to swing her legs sticking out the top of the opening back and forth as the dust and the heat and the closeness of the machinery started to push in against her ability to concentrate. She did her best to contain the feeling but, in the end, it was all for nothing.

“We can’t push it out,” she said, breathing heavily after scrambling out of the hole backwards, sweat stinging her eyes. “Not without ripping a massive hole in the hull and tearing out half of our cooling unit.” She took a swig of water from her water bottle while thinking through their options.

“Statement: It is such a shame, is it not, Master,” HK said innocently, “that someone saw fit to sell all of our munitions off, leaving our ship stocked only with small rifle fit for nothing more than shooting sewer vermin. It’s such a shame we are unable to merely wait out our unexpected journey and give our captors a wonderful surprise at the end of it!”

“Hey, I left you with a flamethrower too! Besides, I don’t plan on waiting that long to get home.” She took a deep breath. “We’re going to have to disable this thing from the outside. I’m going to grab my tool belt, slap a spacesuit on and wait for us come out of hyperspace. Pop outside, switch this thing off, fly home. Should be fairly simple.”

“Query: Master, what happens when our captors decide to make another jump and you’re still outside? Also, you said answering the distress signal would be simple.”

“Okay, for one I didn’t say it would be simple, I said it wouldn’t take long. And for the other thing…” Sera searched for an answer, visions of being ripped off the ship by the force of a jump filling her head. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure it won’t be a problem at all.”

She quickly geared up, ignoring T3’s doubtful whistling and HK’s colourful comments following her around the ship as she gathered her tools, only shutting up when she thrust their rifle into his hands and telling to shoot anyone that fucked with the ship. She tottered over to the service hatch and waited for T3’s signal that they were about to drop out of hyperspace.

“Alright, you two, take care of the ship while I’m gone.”

There was a moment’s worry that she wouldn’t be able to get the bulky suit out the service hatch, scuppering her plans before she had any chance to execute them. But the suit turned out to be far more squishable than Sera thought it would be. It was not unlike pushing a child’s balloon through a narrow, ring with uneven edges and just as nerve-wracking but she got through without any discernible punctures. She spent enough time afterwards slapping at her suit, watching for any change in pressure, to be certain. Finally, she glanced up.

“Ah, shit!” A long line of ships stretched out in front of her, all moving in concert with each other. Her comm crackled to life.

“Statement: Master, what is your status? Are you in need of assistance!”

“Oh, good! The comms still work!” The sound was thin and heavily distorted, probably meaning that she’d lose contact if she moved too far away from the ship. But it was better than being stuck out in space all on her lonesome!

T3 chittered a reprimand at her for making them worry. “No, I’m not… There’s still a problem.” She looked out at the other ships illuminated in the light from a nearby star. “Looks like a whole bunch of other folks fell prey to the same trick we did.”

“Statement: That is meaningless, Master. There is no reason why the existence of other trapped vessels should alter our plans in any way.”

“Don’t be stupid, HK.” She started making her way to the underside of the ship, making sure that she had a safety line affixed to the ship at all times. “I’m gonna have a quick look at this thingamajig before we deal with everyone else.”

The “thingamajig” turned out to be a large metal plate, thicker in the centre where the drilling unit must have been located, and bright yellow. It seemed smooth and impenetrable at first, but closer inspection revealed a tightly fitted panel that proved to be susceptible to being forcefully prised off with a screwdriver.

“Cautionary: Master, the trashcan says that the engines are being primed for another jump.”

“Just give me a minute.”  _ Maybe I can memorize what this whole thing looks like… _

“Warning: Master, you need to move now!”

The service hatch was too far away and the shape of the Hawk’s hull didn’t afford much protection from the forces about to buffer the ship. Not on this end anyway. Shoving the panel roughly back in place, Sera gathered the Force in her legs and jumped. She flew across the space separating the Ebon Hawk from the Glory of Nal Hutta, energy gathering in the engines in front of her. She briefly wondered what would happen if she didn’t get herself anchored in time, the passage between the two ships seeming to last an eternity. Her hands made contact with the other ship’s hull, quickly clipping her safety line to multiple points and pulling herself into a recess under the engines as the roared to life and the stars streaked blue. Her whole body vibrating in concert with the Glory of Nal Hutta’s hull, she glanced over to the Hawk and caught a glimpse of yellow metal shooting off into the void behind them, the panel apparently not having been replaced as tightly as it should have been.

And now there was nothing to do but wait, something she seemed to have been doing all day.  _ I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning… _ She rechecked her suit and made sure that she hadn’t lost any of her tools on the way over. The audio filters on her suit were doing an admirable job of keeping the roar of the engines over her head to a safe minimum, as well as the more disturbing sound of metal warping under the stress of a faster than light flight. Without thinking, she glanced at her wrist to check the time, then cursed and slapped at her helmet to activate her heads-up-display. This jump was taking longer than the other ones. Hopefully, that didn’t mean they were heading straight for their captor’s final destination.

To pass the time, she started scrolling through audio channels in the vain hope that there would be something interesting on one of them, despite all evidence to the contrary. She was nearly to the end of the list when she flicked over to the emergency channel and urgent Huttese blared into her ear.

“Hey, Glory of Nal Hutta!” she said, flicking her receiver on. “How’re you guys doing?”

The voice on the other end started to respond when there seemed to be some sort of scuffle and someone else seized the comm. “Is that the idiot captain of the Ebon Hawk?” the voice said in Huttese. “What did you think you were doing getting captured instead rescuing the great Bezha like you were supposed to, idiot?” There was a pause. “And what are you doing on my ship?”

“I’m not exactly…” she thumped her fist as hard as she could into the hull beneath her, “ _ on _ your ship. And the rescuing is going to get underway as soon as we--” The stars snapped back into focus as the train of ships popped back into realspace. “As soon as that.” She clambered up the rear of the ship as quickly as the bulky suit and safety lines would allow her, using a tendril of the Force to hasten her progress.

“How do you plan on doing anything from out there, idiot? It’s our  _ computers  _ they attacked!”

“They’re using those… whatchamacallits…” She searched her mind for the right word. “The things the cops use when they wanna steal your speeder…” She pushed herself forward to her next handhold, huffing a little at the unfamiliar exertion. “You have a very long ship.”

“An engine clamp? The idiot police on Mygeeto used one on the great Bezha’s limo.” There was the sound of an angry fist knocking aside a glass. “Who cares if the spot was reserved for ambulances? Did they not know that the great Bezha had business in the area?” Another pause as someone whispered something to her conversation partner. “You’ve gone too far forward, idiot. Our computers are centrally located.”

She was getting close to the bow.  _ Finally. _ “I’m not removing your clamp. I’m getting to the head of this train and disconnecting the top one. Free us all in one go.”

“You’re going to free peasants before the great Bezha? The great Bezha does not wai--”

“The great Bezha’s” words got cut off as Sera pushed off from the Glory of Nal Hutta, quickly bouncing over a small family-sized ship and nestling herself under the armour-plating of another light freighter with plenty of time to space before the hyperdrives engaged in unison once more. She waved at the little kid gaping at her from the cockpit of the ship in front of her and settled down to wait. Sera guessed that their captors were following their own, circuitous route to avoid detection by local security patrols and hoped that their own trip home wasn’t going to be too complicated.

She made better progress during the next sublight interval, getting all the way up to the third ship in the train before a tickle in the Force warned her to find cover. Now she just had to disengage the clamp thing on the ship one up in the queue from her and they could all go home. But what was going to happen when they were all free, presumably in the middle of nowhere, and there was a most likely heavily armed ship full of pissed off thieves in their midst? She turned the problem over in her mind as she gathered her tools for what she needed to do, having half a plan formulated by the time they dropped out of another, longer jump.

The scramble up to the head vehicle, a heavily modified patrol cruiser, took next to no time at all. Sera thought wryly that she might get quick good at this climbing thing if she had to do much more of it. She quickly found what she was looking for: the access hatch to the ship’s sensor and communications array. Removing the panel was a painstaking process, focussing every sense that she had on the task as she loosened screws and eased clips out of their sockets, listening with everything she had for any hint that she was setting off an alarm or anti-tamper device. She lifted the panel free, finding a single alarm wire plugged into a receiver on the underside of the panel that she was able to split off into its own feedback loop before clipping the wire and letting the panel float off into space.

Quickly taping over the external sensors, she turned her attention to the communications array. It was then that the cruiser performed a sharp roll, flinging Sera off the ship, only her safety line keeping her from following the service hatch panel out into oblivion. Her heart stopped. Had their captors noticed what she was doing? Drifting around, she finally took note of their surroundings and felt a smile tugging at her lips. They had entered another asteroid field. Or perhaps it was the same one as before, who knew. But the roll had simply been to manoeuvre neatly past and asteroid in the train’s path, as evidenced by the graceful ballet being performed in sequence down the line. And even better, the asteroid field stretched out as far as Sera could see. Meaning they either had a long portage ahead of them as they picked their way through the field or their captors’ destination was somewhere in this field. Either way, they weren’t going to make another hyperspace jump for a little while.

Shimmying down her safety line, Sera started to attack the comms array with gusto. She disabled all incoming sensors, ensuring that those aboard the ship would be completely deaf to any audio traffic not originating from within the ship itself. Cackling in delight at the discovery that the jamming signal that had gotten them into this mess appeared to originate from an aftermarket unit fitted to the cruiser rather from the individual clamping devices, she simply unplugged it from its power source, rendering it inert. Then removed the ship’s communications dish and tossed it into the asteroid field for good measure.

Now for the engine clamp. She located it towards the rear of the rather battered and decrepit civilian ship at the head of the queue of captured ships, clicking her comm on when she remembered that no-one knew what the hell she was doing.

“--lucky that you are not within range, vile Hutt, or I would--”

“Hey, how’re you guys doing back there? Miss me yet?” she said, removing the outer panel of the clamp and staring at the complex innards.

“Statement: Master! I was beginning to wonder if I had to avenge you again.” There were some excited beeps just out of earshot. “My little, rolling obstacle of a companion is pleased to hear from you as well.”

“Why are we not free yet, idiot captain?”

“This is a little more…” A capacitor sparked and flared briefly in the vacuum at her fiddling. She quickly soldered a join over the break, hoping it would be enough. “I can’t just rip this thing out without bricking the main computer and…” Another spark and a hurried bypass. “Fuck! I wish Bastila were here. Fucking with things while they’re still running is not my specialty! Hang on a minute.” She scrolled awkwardly through the audio channel list while diverting power and disabling processors until she found what she thought was the right channel. “Hey, first ship in the line! Do you read me?”

The comm clicked over and there seemed to be some confusion on the other end about who was supposed to answer. “Er, yes, hello, are you talking to us?” The voice was a little frail and tremulous. “I didn’t know comms were back.”

“My name is Sera Khan and I’m trying to get us all free from this road trip from hell but I’m gonna need you to do something for me. When I say so, I want you to refresh your main systems. Not a full reboot, just get them to reload all their processes. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, I think I can.” The clicking of controls on the other end. “You know, I was worried that you were one of those rascals that captured us come to make your demands. I’d be very grateful if you could get us on our way again. Yes, I don’t want to be late for what we have to do.”

“Oh, yeah? What were you on your way to do?” Using her blow torch as an improvised heat gun, she loosened and rearranged several chips, keeping an eye on her voltmeter. “Okay, refresh now.” She heard the click and the fans spin and watched the clamp’s navigational override fail and reroute control to its auxiliary, which Sera had redirected back to the ship’s own computer. Perfect! Now she just had to restore engine control.

“We were on our way to an old station around 3559 Persei--”

“Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”  _ Disabling this thing’s not so bad once you get the hang of it.  _ Then another section of the board caught fire and she changed her mind.

“It’s near Forsen, about twenty parsecs rimward from the local nebula. My grandfather received a vision from the god Pahh’Tung there and we’re making a pilgrimage there as my family has done every ten years since.”

She swatted the fire out and surveyed the damage. “Paying your respects then?” Nothing critical damaged.

“Yes and we don’t want to be l--”

“Why are you chatting up peasants instead of freeing the great Bezha, idiot?”

Sera sighed. “Hold on a sec,” she said to the captain of the lead ship. She clicked over to the Glory of Nal Hutta’s channel. “You wanna be helpful and tell the other ships that they’re gonna have to fly away quickly and quietly soon?”

“The great Bezha does not--!”

“Fine.” She switched to the Hawk’s channel. “HK, would you and T3--”

“Statement: Already underway, Master. The remaining ships stand ready for your signal.”

“Thanks, HK.” A thought occurred to her just as she changed back to the old pilgrim’s ship. “Shit!”

“Eh? What! What happened?”

Sera felt herself turning bright red inside her spacesuit. “Fuck! Wait, no, shit, sorry!” She waved her hand in apology before remembering that nobody could see her. “It’s not… I bought a bunch of flowers for my girlfriend as an apology for… and I forgot to put them in some water and my droid wouldn’t have done it…” An image of limp blue blossoms, miserable and wilted, popped into her mind. “Ah, fuck…”

“Oh. I was worried that something was wrong…”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to cause alarm. I promise this will only take a moment.”  _ Shit. Stupid. _

She heard a gentle chuckle. “I’m certain that your girlfriend, was it? I am certain she will happy to just have you home.”

“Shit, I’m really sorry to have…” She soldered one last wire into place. “Everything’s in place here, I just need to alert the other ships.” She opened a channel to all ships. “Okay, everybody get ready. We should all be free in 3, 2…” She severed the final connection controlling the battered ship’s engines and felt them drift slowly out from their captor’s ship’s shadow.

“You really did it! I can’t thank you enough.” The old pilgrim sounded a little teary.

Sera felt a warm, happy glow forming in her heart. “It was my pleasure. I can’t believe I get to go home finally. What a day...” A weariness stole over her limbs as she finally let the adrenaline from the last few hours events drain out of her.  _ Maybe Bastila wouldn’t mind joining me for a nap.  _ She let out a long breath and closed her eyes, resting her head against the hull of the ship.

“Hey, Ebon Hawk! We’re still not free!”

“We can’t control our ship! You didn’t fix it!”

“You should have freed the great Bezha first, idiot!”

“Alert: Master! The Ebon Hawk is still slaved to the capturing ship’s control!”

Her eyes snapped to the line of ships. Instead of the loose formation of ships, each straying in their own direction, that she had expected to see, they were still in their tightly controlled line, moving in sync with the head ship. And they were accelerating.

“Quick! We need to get out of the queue!”

“But… what are we…”

She banged on the hull of the pilgrim’s ship. “Nose down now!” They jerked down awkwardly, narrowly missing the delivery vehicle that pushed forward blindly to take their place and veered off into the asteroid field away from the other ships.

“Okay, bring us around. I don’t want to get too far away from the others.”

The old pilgrim dutifully did as they were told. “What are we going to do now? That was supposed to free everyone.”

“Warning: Master, we are nearing the end of the asteroid field.”

Sera twisted her head around and saw to her horror the vast expanse of space frighteningly near. Time had passed so quickly… “I’ll deal with it now, HK.” She switched back to the pilgrim’s channel. “I need you to get me close enough to transfer to the ship that just took our place while staying out of sight of our captors. Can you do that?”

“I’ll do my best.” They sounded a little shaky. “What are you going to do?”

She readied herself for the transfer, securing her tools to herself. She’d lost her screwdriver and her roll of tape. “What I want you to do is get somewhere safe and alert the authorities to our last known position. I’m going to free the rest of the ships one by one.” She took a sip of her suit’s water bottle and prepared to jump. “All clear?”

“Yes, I’ll tell them where you are and what the situation is. Is this close enough?”

They were shadowing the line of ships. Not completely steadily but it would have to do. “This is perfect. Thanks for your help.” And she jumped, winding herself when she overestimated the distance. She fumbled getting her safety line anchored, her hands starting to shake a little, as the battered ship pulled away from them into the safety of the asteroid field. “T3, you mind giving them our location and route so far?” She had just enough time to register T3’s helpful whistle as she scurried to find cover, swinging her legs out of danger moments before they jumped to hyperspace.

She took a deep breath. Her shoulders were starting to ache from all the jumping and climbing. Even on their worst jobs, they usually didn’t go for this long without a break or a cup of caf. Dammit, she was thirsty for something that wasn’t tepid water. She ran a quick diagnostic on her suit. Pressure and temperature control were holding steady, even though the sweat on her skin told a different story. Oxygen was… okay. It would hold for several more hours but she was burning through it quicker than normal. She opened a channel to the ship she was hitching a ride on to make sure they were okay. They were understandably terse, their disappointment obvious and thick in the Force and she ended the conversation after telling them what she needed from them. Shifting to find a more comfortable position, she ran over what she knew about the line of ships in her mind, acid rising in her stomach. She was going to have to move quickly to get everyone free before they got too far from home.

The remaining time until they dropped out of hyperspace both took forever and no time at all. There were in deep space this time, the weak light of the distant stars leaving Sera in almost total darkness. She switched her headlamp on and scampered to where the clamp was, removing the central panel with a quick swing of her crowbar. She repeated the process of disabling the device’s navigational control, not working quite as quickly or efficiently as she would have liked. She awkwardly clicked her comm on while she continued clipping wires and swapping chips and was about to hail the ship’s captain when another voice filtered through.

“--body fucking with our comms and told me to go investigate.”

Sera froze. Had they been caught out already? The voice didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, chatting with a voice that Sera couldn’t hear while they got ready. She took note of the channel that she’d inadvertently tuned into and quickly asked the ship’s captain to refresh their systems before switching to the Hawk’s channel.

“Statement: HK-47 ready to serve, Master.”

“HK, I want you to tell the other ships to stop broadcasting on all channels and contact each other directly instead. Also, if they could avoid this channel.” She gave him the frequency. “I think our captors’ personal comms are still functional and it sounds like they suspect something is up.”

“Statement: Understood, Master. I shall pass on your orders and monitor the channel for any suspicious activity.”

She thanked him and returned to her work, keeping an ear on the enemy channel herself, wondering what the fuck she was going to do when he finally exited his vehicle and saw the mess she’d made of their communications array.  _ Maybe he’ll have a complete nervous breakdown when confronted with the vastness and grandeur of space and not notice anything amiss…  _ She sped through the rest of the removal, freeing the ship she clung to and transferring right next to the next clamp while the sound of her enemy clambering and swearing up a narrow service hatch played in her ear.

Swearing, then the sound of someone counting. “Hey, Wes? Looks like we’ve lost some product. Wes?” More swearing when they were met by silence. There was a pause, Sera wishing she had some way of seeing what was happening on the other ship as she worked, then she jumped, nearly losing her blowtorch, as the observation was repeated at full volume, presumably down the service hatch. She took a moment to switch off all of her comms, yell “fuck’s sake!” very loudly in the solitude of her space suit, and switch back to eavesdropping on their captors, ears still ringing painfully. Thankfully, she hadn’t missed anything, coming in on the tail-end of an argument between the suited yeller and a “Chorda”. The argument ended with the yeller saying that it was no good if they got to the rendezvous point without comms as Sera neared the end of the removal process. Hoping that she wasn’t being a massive idiot --  _ Again -- _ she left the clamp as is and climbed down to the next ship.

Her comm crackled on. “Statement: Master, it appears as though we have slowed down to allow our adversary time to repair the damage you have wrought on their ship.” A pause. “They do not sound particularly happy with you, Master.”

“Ha! See how  _ they _ like trying to fix a big pile of-- Oh, fuck!” A capacitor sparked and caught fire.

“Statement: I was under the impression that we were beyond that stage, Master.”

“I’m not-- fucking hell!” She solved the problem by ripping the offending components off the board. “I’ve moved onto the next ship so I can sneakily free several right before a jump -- did you get that… Cherry Daisy? Nice name -- because I want to free as many of us as possible without the rest of us getting shot at. ...Does that make sense?” she said, hoping she didn’t sound like a crazy person.

“Statement: As always, Master--”

“Er, Ebon Hawk captain? We're seeing folks with guns coming our way over the top of our ship.”

Sera's blood ran cold. “Okay, thanks, Cherry Daisy,” she responded, almost on instinct. “How many of them do you see?”

“Uh, about five… No, um, at  _ least  _ five. It's a bit hard to tell.”

“Explanation: T3-M4 believes that the main ship has noticed his interference with their control of the Ebon Hawk and come to the conclusion that he is the source of all of their problems. Request: Oh, please let me deal with them, Master! Oh, please, oh, please!”

“I don't know. Five is kinda a lot…”  _ And I didn't really wanna kill anybody. _

“Promise: I will be careful, Master. Oh, please let me do it!” She could practically hear him quivering with anticipation.

“Ebon Hawk captain, they're passing over us now.”

She sighed. “Okay, fine. Just be careful and don't take too many chances!”

She ignored HK’s effusive thanks and detailed descriptions of all the things he could do to any intruders and continued preparing clamps for removal, shadowing the group of bad guys on their way to the Ebon Hawk. After a quick mental calculation of how long it would take them to reach and infiltrate the Hawk, she made her way back to the head of the train and began freeing ships, managing to free half of those left before HK confirmed that the Ebon Hawk had been breached and that he was eagerly lying in wait for his victims. She heard the first cries of alarm and HK’s dark chuckles as they made another jump and she slumped uncomfortably against the confines of her hiding spot.  _ Well, at least someone’s having a good time. Hope I don’t have to do too many more of these.  _ Her lungs were burning and every inch of her was aching. She closed her eyes. There was only them, the other light freighter, the family vehicle and the Hutt ship left to get free. She just needed a moment to rest and then she’d be as right as rain…

The violent jolt threw her forward, pulling her unceremoniously back to consciousness. The line of ships jerked wildly around, her sleep-laden limbs slow to brace herself against the motion, managing only to get an arm between herself and a potentially fatal collision between her helmet and a metal support.

“Hey, captain of the Ebon Hawk? You got any idea what happened?”

“I was just about to ask you!” Fuck, her brain was soft. She needed to get moving, get everyone free. Hauling herself out of her hiding spot, she got to work, mouth dry and fingers clumsy in her gloves. A sip of water helped the first. The other she would just have to deal with. Swearing at her own stupidity when her brain finally switched on, she found the bad guy channel from before and tuned in. And she heard a wet gurgle that she had hoped to never hear again in her life. Then blasterfire, a familiar mechanical voice crowing in the background and finally, distorted and difficult to hear, the open comm to his partners. She listened to the screams and the violence, acid churning in her stomach, long enough to know that they didn’t know what was going on either. She shut off the audio and gave herself a moment to just breathe and focus on the machinery in front of her. Not wanting to waste too much time on herself, she opened a channel to the Ebon Hawk.

“Exclamation: I have to thank you, Master! I have never seen so much blood!”

Sera took a steadying breath. And another one for good measure. “You or T3 know anything about our sudden drop out of hyperspace?”

“Statement: Negative, Master. The trash can says that there shouldn’t have been any stellar bodies along that route.” There was an insistent whistling. “But that there is something wrong with our adversaries’ maps,” he repeated in a mocking tone. “Now, if you will please, Master, our enemies will not kill themselves.”

“Just be careful! I heard them muttering something about a plan and -- ah, fuck it.” He’d already switched the channel off. She removed the engine clamp off the light freighter, no longer bothering with subterfuge, and got halfway through the removal of the clamp on the family vessel before needing to take cover. She rubbed her trembling hands and stretched her aching wrists. She was slowing down. She was slowing down and she didn’t know how much longer she could do this before she fumbled her safety line or mistimed a jump and found herself floating off into space to die a slow, lonely death. No! If she wanted to hear Bastila scold her again, feel her fingers threading through her hair, she would have to fucking focus and not screw up. There was simply no other option.

She was more careful the next time they dropped out of hyperspace. More deliberate in her movements, even though the yawning pit in her stomach told her that the day was nearly over without having to check her chrono. Finishing freeing the family vessel, a single father and his kids caught on their way to their vacation, she started the work of freeing the Great Bezha’s ship, blocking out the abuse spewing out from the ship. Her comm clicked on.

“I don’t give a flying fuck about the size of your portfolio, Bezha, I’m not gonna--”

Uncertain booping filtered through the line. There’d been an explosion and screaming and not all of it had sounded organic. Sera swore and slapped at her communicator until she found the right channel.

“HK-47, respond!” There was static and blasterfire and the sound of running. “That wasn’t a request, HK!”

“S-s-statement: Master, th-they had some sort of incendiary device that cracked my-my chassis.” More blasterfire, a lot more, and angry yelling. “But I’ve got them on the run-on the run now, Master!”

“Negative! Fall back, HK, that’s an order!” It sounded like they were coming closer.

“Statement-Stat--: M-mast--”

“Aim for his head! Don’t let him get his gun up!” There was scuffling and a heavy, metallic thud.

“HK, Get out of there!” Sera banged her fist fruitlessly against the hull of the ship.

“ERROR-ERROR-ERRO--” Then the channel went dead.

Tears streamed down her face. “Dammit!” She banged her fist against the metal one last time.  _ Dammit… _

“Stop whining about your property, idiot! What’s one more droid?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Sera tore roughly at the last few connections with her crowbar, uncautious of the damage to the hull. “There! You’re free, asshole!”

“Ha! Finally, idiot!” The Glory of Nal Hutta veered sharply to the side, necessitating a quick jump from Sera to avoid being dragged off into hyperspace. “Thanks for nothing!”

She landed awkwardly on the bad guy ship, rolling and twisting her leg as she clipped herself safely on. Shuffling to safety, she noticed twin triangles of red duraplast with tiny impulse engines bolted to the underside of the ship. Apparently, the two “fighters” that had caused all this nonsense were nothing more drones. Probably a child’s toy that had been modified to appear more fearsome from a distance. HK could have blown them to shreds without anyone worrying about anything other than property damage. She let out a tiny sob. She didn’t know if she was going to be able to put him back together again. Instinctively, she raised an arm to wipe her eyes, only for it to bump ineffectively into the visor of her helmet.  _ Fuck. _ Another thing that she’d just have to wait to fix. She switched her comm on.

“Hey, T3. How’re you doing in there?” she said, sniffing.

T3 whistled softly at her, sounding so small and frightened. He could hear voices and people moving around outside the door to the comms room and he didn’t know what to do. It sounded like they were going to force the door open and HK wasn’t responding to T3’s calls.

“No, uh…” Sera felt terrible. How did you tell someone that the only other friendly face with them on a ship probably got physically torn to pieces? “HK’s been incapacitated. Uh…”  _ Fuck. _ “Do you, um, is there any way you can make an estimate as to how many people are there with you? And what their general condition is?”

Sera listened as T3 told her what little he had gleaned from his position plugged into the ship’s main computers, holding her helmet wearily in her hands. There were several of them and they were angry. They also seemed to be roving about the ship, although it was difficult to tell from within the sound-proofed comms room. But there had to be several well-armed and experienced fighters among them if they were able to take down HK-47.

Shit. How was she going to get her ship back? “Okay, um… I’m going to work on some things on this end. You see if you can lock as many doors as possible to slow them down.” She felt them jolt into hyperspace. “And stay safe!” she yelled into the void, hoping he would hear her.

She thumped back into her spot under the engines of the bad guy’s ship.  _ Now what? _ She looked over the Ebon Hawk trailing behind her position, almost close enough to touch if she stretched but out of communications range. Did she really think she could take on “several” angry intruders in just her shorts and t-shirt? She could practically hear her tired body creaking at the thought of doing anything more strenuous than standing under a hot shower.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Someone was coming into the Ebon Hawk’s cockpit. They would only have to turn their head slightly to catch sight of her. She looked around, then wished she could smack herself for her stupidity. What, did she think that the ship was going to magically have grown some extra panels for her to hide behind just because she needed them? She jammed her crowbar into the gap between two hull panels near her, hoping against hope that she wasn’t about to puncture anything particularly flammable. There was a flash of pink lekku in the cockpit. She froze, her arm holding the crowbar at an awkward angle. It didn’t look like they’d noticed her. Could she move without drawing further attention to herself? Turning her head around with agonising slowness, she watched the Twi’lek pick up the bunch of flowers left on the cockpit console and toss them aside, replacing them with an expensive-looking blaster rifle and poking at the controls. They weren’t looking her way but Sera didn’t know how long that would last. She gently applied pressure to the crowbar, lifting the panel away from its framing. No escaping atmosphere. Good. That meant that there were unlikely to be any pressure sensors that she needed to avoid. Glancing back, she saw that the Twi’lek was still preoccupied with the ship’s controls. She carefully prised the panel free, making sure not to let it float away or warp too much, and climbed inside the opening that she’d exposed. She had time to see the Twi’lek turn around in alarm as the cockpit door of the Ebon Hawk snapped shut behind them before she closed herself into a small, dark hole.

Sera switched her headlamp on. It helped a little with the feeling that she was closed in on all sides. Which she was, to be honest. She took a deep breath. The inner workings of a ship this size never took up that much space. She shouldn’t be that far from the pressurised interior. She pushed past power cables and tubing carrying coolant to the various components, keeping an eye on her suit’s pressure gauge to make sure she hadn’t gotten it caught on any sharp edges. There was actually more room to manoeuvre than in the Hawk’s innards, not needing the more compressed workings of a ship designed for hauling cargo. Her outstretched hand encountered the underside of the ship’s inner wall. Where each panel fit together was pretty easy to see from this side of the wall, as were the pressure sensors lining the panels at two-metre intervals. Now, how was she going to get inside without setting one of them off? The sensors didn’t look particularly sophisticated, so maybe if she just connected a length of wire to  _ that _ one, then ran it  _ there _ … Shit, the connections were more delicate than she thought and she’d used up most of her wire. This was going to be a pretty tight fit. She just had to get  _ under _ the wire, loosen the sealant foam from the frame,  _ push _ against a room full of air…

And she was in! The panel clanging back into place against the weight of the pressure in the room was a little louder than she was happy with, but what could you do? She popped the seals on her helmet, refilling her oxygen, but didn’t remove it yet. Instead, she stood listening for any signs that her intrusion had been noticed, any sign that she’d have to seal her helmet against a well-timed gas grenade. No attack seemed forthcoming but it was getting very difficult to ignore how much like a locker room the place smelled like. Eyes watering, she carefully removed and folded her space suit, aching muscles complaining, placing it in front of her entry point so she wouldn’t have to waste time searching for it if she had to leave in a hurry. Not that she wanted to do anything in a hurry at the moment nor did her tatty shorts and t-shirt offer more protection than multiple layers of fabric but it was better than clattering around an unknown ship in heavy boots. She wasn’t looking to pick a fight anyway and hopefully she wouldn’t have to.

Gathering what remained of her tools and keeping her crowbar at the ready, Sera inched her way cautiously out of the room. There was a long, brightly-lit corridor outside with doors opening off either side. Simple enough. The corridor most likely ran the length of the ship from stern to bow with the cockpit at the end. Although, she wished it weren’t so bright. How was she supposed to sneak in broad fucking dayli--

The cockpit door slid open, a man standing in the doorway. They both stared at each other, slack-jawed, for a moment. Then the man swore and grabbed his sidearm, firing at Sera. With instincts born out of a lifetime of training, she brought her crowbar up to deflect the shot. The force of the blast smacked her arm into her face, dazing her and sending the remains of her crowbar flying. She scrabbled for the fallen crowbar, narrowly missing another shot, and pulled herself through the nearest door, locking it behind her.

That wouldn’t keep him long. Shit, she didn’t mean to get… She had to keep moving. Pushing aside some crates of rations, she jammed her mangled crowbar into a wall panel, not wanting to give the game away by being too loud but very aware of the angry blaster bolts to the locked door behind her. The sharp metal of the crowbar slicing up her hand, she popped the panel off of its frame, followed by its mate on the other side off the wall. She could hear the door groaning and giving way under the repeated blasterfire as she hurried through her improvised hole into the next room, awkwardly pulling the crates back into place through the Force in a vain attempt to hide her escape.

She emerged into an empty barracks, personal items littered everywhere. After a quick look to confirm that the corridor was clear, she slipped out of the room. She ran barefoot for the cockpit, hoping that she wasn’t inviting a blaster bolt to the back, the Force the only thing keeping her tired body from planting face-first into the floor. The hand gripping her crowbar was also starting to ache and she had to flick sweat-dampened hair out of her eyes. She locked herself into the cockpit and made for the communications console. Getting the ship to blare out a distress signal on all imaginable frequencies wasn’t quite the ship takeover that she’d hoped for but it would have to do for now. Hopefully, local security forces would respond quickly.

There was a bang and some loud swearing and what sounded like threats from the cockpit door. That probably meant no nice, long nap in the captain’s chair, even if the doors to the cockpit  _ were _ double reinforced as she thought they were. It also seemed as though her adversary was being smarter about getting through the door, picking the lock instead of using brute force. That didn’t give her long. She checked the navcomputer - not long until they dropped out of hyperspace - and disconnected the indicator light for the emergency signal system.

The click of the cockpit’s inner door was all the warning she had. She ducked behind the command console, gripping the now slick crowbar. She glanced down at her hand. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d cut herself. Had she bled all over the ship, leaving a very obvious trail to herself? She pushed a trickle of the Force into her hand, closing but not healing the wound, very aware of her own breathing - was she being too loud? - and the quiet but not inaudible steps of her adversary prowling around the cockpit. The ships jerked as they entered realspace, granting her a minor reprieve from the man’s search for her as his compatriots called to update him on their situation. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cool metal of the command console. Her head felt light and the persistent glitching of her eye was giving her a migraine, moreso now after her minor use of healing. She couldn’t go on much longer before she collapsed from exhaustion.

“The fuck are you asking me for? It was stupid Hulo’s route and he’s not around to tell us how he fucked it up.”

Sera frowned against her throbbing head. Was this related to T3 saying something about the bad guy’s maps being wrong? How did that work? Maps were fairly standard across the galaxy.

“I don’t care! We are running out of time to get to the meetup and we only have  _ one ship _ because  _ you _ couldn’t--”

Sera’s communicator beeped loudly, echoing around the hard walls of the cockpit. She fumbled for the mute button, her reactions slow in her tiredness. Her stupid brain wondered briefly if she was lucky enough for the angry man with the gun to not instantly figure out where she was when a hand reached over the top of the console to grab her, only the instinctive swing of her crowbar saving her from being dragged over the console by her hair. The swing connected, causing her adversary to swear profusely. She popped out from behind the console - no point in hiding now - and kept swinging, hoping to knock the blaster from his grasp.

Rapid whistling and beeping came through her communicator. Clearly her clumsy fingers had hit the connect button instead of the mute. An unknown ship had entered the system and was approaching fast. It appeared to be armed.

“Wes, we need to get out of here!” The heavy sound of laserfire from a patrol cruiser boomed around the cockpit and through her adversary’s open comm. Good. Maybe. At least the newcomers weren’t allied with the hijackers.

“I’m having a little trouble here! Garan? Hey, Garan?” He swore, narrowly avoiding a crowbar to the face. Sera reversed her swing, bringing it crashing down on the blaster. An explosion towards the rear of the ship sent them both flying. Sera had a moment to glance at the ship’s status - both engines down, status critical - before she had to roll away to avoid getting into a draining wrestling match with her much larger opponent. Distantly she heard what she thought sounded like a landing party. He lunged at her again, using her own tactic of keeping him moving against her. She swung her crowbar in a wide arc to keep him back, switching hands as she felt the wound on her right hand reopening, glancing around the room as much as she could without losing her focus on her opponent. Where had that damn blaster gone? Her opponent charged at her and she spun away to avoid him, only to come face to face with the business end of the lost blaster as she completed her turn to face him.

The clattering of boots and yells as rooms were cleared was obvious now. It would only be a matter of moments before they reached the cockpit. Sera dropped the crowbar and raised her hands in surrender. There was a look of absolute fury on her opponent’s face, his eyes darting from Sera to the open cockpit door and for a moment Sera wondered if he was going to risk murder charges for the satisfaction of blowing her head off. Then he pulled his finger off the trigger and laid the blaster on the ground, glaring at her as he raised his hands as well.

A knot of tension unwound within Sera. “Hey, T3,” she said into her still open comm. “Looks like things might finally be over.”

She was answered with static. A grenade spewing acrid, choking gas was tossed into the cockpit, making both of them cough and cover their faces. She felt a warning through the Force that she was about to be hit by something and it took everything within her to relax her body as she was hit with the paralyzing bolt. Everything hurt, every molecule in her body feeling like it was being shaken. Her last thought as her body hit the floor was that she hoped that they would let her call Bastila and that she wouldn’t be too mad at Sera for the mess she’d gotten herself in. Then her mind went still and she knew no more.


	2. Chapter 2

The wastebasket clattered impotently against the closed door. It didn’t make her feel any better. Unsurprisingly. And now there was trash littering her floor. Bastila let out a frustrated breath and frowned. Should she go after Sera, get her to talk about what she had said? She couldn’t have gotten far. Bastila dug her toes into the rug that they’d picked out together when they’d moved into the apartment, feeling the pile beneath her feet as she thought. No, she said she needed time to cool down and Bastila would respect that.

 _What had gotten into her, anyway, saying things like that?_ Whatever it was, Bastila wanted to find whoever was responsible and give them a piece of her mind. _Bloody Jedi. What did they say to her?_ The wastebasket had come to a rest close to her foot after it had fallen to the floor and she gave it a good kick, bouncing it off the door. She changed her mind. That did make her feel better.

She picked up the wastebasket, collecting the trash back into it (she hadn’t made _too_ much of a dent in the door, it was fine, no one would notice) and setting it back next to the entrance where it belonged. Then she stored Sera’s uneaten pastry safely away in the fridge for when she got home and set to tidying up their apartment, diverting her anger and frustration into something more positive as her therapist, Ayla, had suggested. She dusted the various knick-knacks and trinkets that she’d inherited from her mother after her passing, put away the groceries that Sera had brought home and collected their dirty laundry that they’d left strewn on the floor the night before. They could walk down to the laundromat together later when Sera got back.

Bastila huffed in annoyance. _Why did she decide that she had to go_ all the way to Dua Sovv’s place _to cool down? Why couldn’t she have run laps around the station until she collapsed or just sat stewing in the Hawk until she felt better?_ Bastila checked the chrono on the kitchen wall. It hadn’t been that long. She should have gone with. It was boring being stuck here without her partner. Slipping on a pair of shoes and a jacket, she checked herself in the mirror to make sure she looked decent and made her way down to the hangar.

And, of course, the Ebon Hawk was gone, its berth standing vast and empty in front of her. It had only been a distant possibility that Sera had not left yet, had changed her mind and had gone on a long walk instead, but she was still a little disappointed. Sighing, she turned around and walked back out of the hangar complex, wondering what she was going to do for the next several hours. A thought occurred to her when she saw the hangar’s security attendant ambling back to their post eating a sandwich and she diverted to intercept them.

“Excuse me,” she said, holding up her hand to catch their attention. “I don’t suppose you’ve noticed any odd ships docking here today? Any unusual visitors to the station?”

The attendant looked at her like she was mental. “Don’t ask me, lady,” he said, mouth full of sandwich. “I just watch ‘em. I don’t count ‘em.”

“No, I was wondering if you’d noticed a…” She paused, uncertain if she wanted to draw too much attention to Sera and herself. “If you happened to notice a Jedi anywhere on the station today,” she said, making her voice soft even though there was nobody else nearby that could hear her.

He guffawed, spraying her with soggy bread crumbs. “Sure, there must have been ten or twenty of them all come to have tea with the station manager!” He chuckled merrily at his own joke.

“Alright, fine.” Bastila swatted the crumbs from her shirt and turned away. _This is why I leave the questions to Sera._ She stomped back to the elevator, held it open for a harried-looking office worker, and rode the way up to the residential level with the other woman in silence.

Exiting the elevator with a polite greeting, she stood looking down their road in thought. Was it worth asking around more for someone who had most likely left after harassing Sera? Skybase wasn’t an especially large station but it was still a rather significant area for one woman on foot to search on her own. Particularly when she didn’t have a name or visual description to work with. Bastila clicked her tongue in frustration. She wished she had thought to ask Sera about the Jedi who had bothered her but things had gotten out of hand so quickly and it hadn’t seemed all that important at the time. It clearly hadn’t been someone Sera recognized but that was next to meaningless. Bastila wondered if it had been anyone she knew or knew of.

She sighed and the sigh turned into a yawn. Today wasn’t really the best day to play detective, not when she was still tired from the declogging from hell. The light from the station’s artificial sun was starting to give her a headache anyway. She strolled back to their apartment, stretching out on the couch after removing her shoes and jacket. She’d have a quick nap, then lunch, and, by that point, it hopefully wouldn’t be long before Sera got home and they could have a proper talk.

~~~

A loud banging jerked her awake. It was dark and for a moment she didn’t know where she was. What time was it? Had the station had a power failure? She fumbled for the lamp behind her head, blinking in pain at the sudden brightness. Her neck was stiff and sore from the uncomfortable angle she’d been sleeping at, her head groggy. She glanced at the chrono on the wall. It was late. Where was Sera?

The banging registered itself as someone knocking on the door. “Just give me a minute!” _Had Sera locked herself out?_

Bastila shuffled to the door, wondering what had taken Sera so long. Had they forgotten to refuel the Hawk? But it wasn’t Sera at the door. Tara Bima and Vani stood outside, him fidgeting a little with his schoolbag as he stood next to his grandmother, his fur still in disarray from limmy practice.

“I’m sorry, dear. Are we early?” Mrs Bima said smiling kindly, eyeing Bastila’s disheveled appearance.

Bastila stuck her head out the door, quickly scanning the rest of the road. “Where’s Sera?” she blurted out.

Mrs Bima blinked. “I thought she was with you. Didn’t she come home this morning?”

She shook her head, heart pounding. “No, no, she didn’t… I mean, she did but then she went out and I stayed here and she isn’t back…”

Mrs Bima bent done and said something to Vani in a soft voice. He nodded and manoeuvered past Bastila, depositing his bag on the counter and switching the kettle as well as a few lights on. Bastila felt a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Let’s go back inside, dear, and you can tell me what happened over a nice cup of tea. How’s about that?”

Bastila allowed herself to be guided inside and to the couch. Vani was muttering to himself quietly as he searched through cupboards for tea and mugs.

“There was a…” Bastila stopped herself short. How was she going to explain what happened without revealing too much? “We… we had an argument,” she said carefully, “that got a little out of hand.” _I should have said something different to her. Why didn’t I know how to answer her?_ “She took the ship the ship out for a run to cool down and she hasn’t come back since then. That was this morning.” Her leg was bouncing up and down by the time she finished, jittery with emotion. “There’s hot chocolate behind the tea if you would prefer that, Vani,” she said to the boy.

He smiled shyly and reached back into the cupboard. His grandmother made a thoughtful noise in the back of her throat.

“You know, dear, people don’t come home for all kinds of reasons. She might have decided to stay someplace overnight or is safe with friends…”

Bastila was already shaking her head. “She wouldn’t do that. Our friends all live too far away anyway. But she wouldn’t do that.” She twisted her hands together. “Not without telling me first.”

Mrs Bima cocked her head. “Did she not call at all? Tell you of a change to her plans?”

“No, there wasn’t any…” Bastila stopped. Was she so certain Sera had made no attempt to contact her while she slept the day away? “I’m not sure.”

“Well, don’t just sit there, dear. Check your calls!”

She moved to the comm unit with the older woman behind her flapping her hands to get her to hurry up. Sure enough, the indicator light was on with a missed call from a listing that Bastila didn’t recognise for a second until she remembered where Sera had been headed. Hoping that someone would still be there to take her call, she keyed in the information for Dua Sovv’s parts yard.

“Erm, hello? Dua Sovv? It’s Bastila Shan.”

“Hey, girly, you lucky you caught me. I was about to close up for the night. Something wrong with the pump? Or are you calling to thank me for the effusiveness of your girlfriend’s apology?” There was a not unkind snickering on the other end.

“No, Dua, she didn’t come home! So you definitely saw her today? She definitely came by your store?”

“Uh, but, what… Huh?” She heard Dua move suddenly and what sounded like a stack of files being knocked to the ground. “But that was this morning! What do you mean she didn’t come home?”

Bastila took a deep breath, Dua’s panic mirroring her own a little too closely. “I took a nap after Sera left and overslept. When I awoke not too long ago she was still not home. And I was… I was wondering if you knew anything about it. If you knew where she might be.” There was a soft touch to her hand as Vani handed her a hot mug of tea. She took a grateful sip, the fragrant liquid soothing her frayed nerves.

Dua sighed. “I am so sorry, Bastila. I know how much it hurts when family members make you worry about them. Uh, yeah, she was here earlier this morning about buying a grinder pump for one of you kids’ jobs. She said you two had had a fight and I offered her the use of this comm to call and apologise but she said the call didn’t go through. She left soon after that. She, uh, seemed a little down. Said something about a bad thing she’d done in the past?”

Bastila tensed, suddenly very aware of their neighbour and her grandson sitting only metres away listening to their conversation.

“Uh, she didn’t go into specifics,” Dua continued. “I told her not to worry too hard about it, there are far worse people out there than anything she could have done. Um. I’m not betraying any confidences here, am I?”

“No, I know all about Sera’s past. It’s not an issue between us. Not on my end, anyway,” she said, a sour feeling in her stomach at the “far worse people” comment. “How, how was she? When she left you?”

“More upbeat, although I know people struggling with things don’t always show how they’re really feeling.” There was a pause. “Uh, whatever happens, you have my condolences.”

“Thanks, Dua,” she said a little stiffly. _I don’t even want to know what you meant by that._

“Um, if I hear anything or if she comes back this way, I’ll tell you, okay?”

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Bastila took a healthy swig of her tea and turned back to face her guests. Vani was sitting at the kitchen counter, his short legs swinging from a stool as he worked on something in front of him. _His history project, of course, I forgot._ His grandmother, however, was looking at Bastila with a speculative look in her eye. Bastila wondered how long it would be before gossip about Sera Khan’s mysterious misdeeds began to make the rounds around the station.

“Well, you heard all that,” she said awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Vani, I don’t think either of us will be able to help you with your project tonight. I’m going to have to… Well, I suppose I’m going to spend the rest of the night reporting Sera’s disappearance.” She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, suddenly tired, trying to remember the proper procedure for reporting a missing person. _I can’t believe this is happening. This doesn’t seem real._

“Where are you going to report it to, dear?” Mrs Bima said, gentle sympathy in her voice. “I don’t think station security will be of much help.”

Bastila let out a long breath and sank back down onto the couch. That was a good question.

“Um…” _Bollocks._ “I suppose I’ll need to go to the system capital on Garqi and report it there. But I’m not really familiar with the planet.” _And how the hell am I going to get there without a ship?_

“My daughter and her family live there and we pop down to visit quite often, don’t we, Vani?” The little boy nodded. “Why don’t I come with you? The city center can get quite confusing.”

Bastila sighed in relief. “Would you? Are you sure it isn’t too much trouble?”

“Of course not. There’s a regular shuttle that should be leaving in about,” she checked the delicate chrono encircling her wrist, “twenty minutes, a bit more as it tends to run a bit behind schedule. We can be at a station in a little over an hour.”

~~~

They left Vani with his homework after asking their neighbour on the other side to check up on him occasionally and promising the boy that they would be back in a few hours. Bastila collected the information she needed. Sera had, naturally, taken her ID with her in her wallet when she left but Bastila still had the copy that they had made when registering to live in the system. She dug in the box at the back of her cupboard. Her fingers ran over the edges of a thick folder and the cold metal of the other item in the bottom of the box until she found the newer, thinner folder she was looking for and pulled out the correct document.

The transport wasn’t the fastest in the world but it did its job and Mrs Bima was skillfully guiding Bastila through a maze-like web of public transport in no time at all. Bastila thought, as the train car they were on rumbled under her feet, that she could probably find her own way with the aid of her slightly rusty training but it was good to have someone with her, to not need to be alone. A nudge to her shoulder told her it was time to move and she followed Mrs Bima off the train and through city streets still crowded with people even this late in the evening.

They ducked into a building and Bastila blinked when she realized that they’d reached their destination. Bastila hadn’t been in many police stations in her life, just the once when all the apprentices got called in to attend a seminar for a drug awareness campaign that the local government on Dantooine had run when she was younger, and she hadn’t expected this one to look so much like a post office. She hurried up to catch up to Mrs Bima who had gone on ahead. There weren’t too many people inside and they were able to walk straight up to a counter without having to wait.

“Go on, dear,” Mrs Bima said softly, giving Bastila a pat on the shoulder. “I’m right here with you.”

“Thank you,” she said, feeling a slight flush of embarrassment on her cheeks. “Um, excuse me?”

She caught the attention of a tired uniformed human rubbing their eyes. “Yeah, how can I help you?”

“I’d like to report the disappearance of my partner?” Bastila pushed the documents she’d brought with her across the counter. “She left home this morning just after nine and should have been back before two this afternoon but… she hasn’t. Come home.”

The officer glanced over the documents. “We only needed a recent photo, not the ID.” They yawned, being polite enough to cover their mouth. “Where was she headed when she disappeared?” they said, reaching under the counter to retrieve some forms.

“Uh, well, she had reached the parts yard just outside Minashee and was...”

The officer was shaking their head. “You can’t report her disappearance here if she didn’t go missing planetside.” They stowed the forms back under the counter. “You’re going to have to report it in the sector capital.”

Bastila was flabbergasted. “Uh, but…”

Mrs Bima banged her tiny fists on the counter. “But why not? She lives in _this_ system!”

“Not our jurisdiction, lady. Anything happens out on the space lanes, you got to deal with the assholes on Cassander.”

With that, the officer turned away and went back to what they were doing before the two of them walked in, leaving them standing lost and confused. They stood like that for a moment, dumbfounded, then Mrs Bima took Bastila by the arm and guided her outside.

They made the journey back to the spaceport in silence, Bastila’s mind churning with what they had learned. Every hour she got delayed with unnecessarily complicated procedure was an extra hour that took Sera further from her. Unless she was already… Panic-stricken, Bastila pressed a hand to her chest, desperate to untangle the thread of Sera’s heartbeat from her own, to make sure that she wasn’t completely alone in this galaxy. It was difficult, her own erratic heartbeat muddying the shadow of a second heartbeat that she’d felt within her ever since she’d first saved Sera’s life, but it was there. Sera wasn’t… She was still alive. Now Bastila just had to find her.

“Of all the useless trips!” Mrs Bima raised her hands up to the heavens as they stood in the queue for the ticket counter and flopped them down in frustration. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t help us. What are you going to do now, dear?”

Bastila took a deep breath. “There’s not much I _can_ do at the moment other than book a flight to Cassander and hope I have better luck there.” She ran a quick mental calculation of the contents of her wallet. She had enough for the trip there and back but travelling was expensive when not in possession of a ship of one’s own.

“Are you sure? It’s getting late and that must be at least a five-hour trip.”

 _It would be quicker if I had the Hawk at my disposal…_ “Yes, I’m certain. I can sleep on the transport and…” She shrugged. “I don’t want to waste any more time.”

Mrs Bima pulled her into an unexpected hug. “It’s going to be alright, dear. We’ll find her.”

Bastila stiffened, then relaxed into the older woman’s embrace. “Thank you.”

~~~

_Sera’s thumbs dug into the tired muscles of Bastila’s shoulders, releasing the aching tension contained within._

_“...you know, I don’t mind a happy ending and all but this felt kinda blegh and cheap. Like it hadn’t been earned, you know.”_

_Bastila smiled, the hot water of the shower sluicing down her body, rinsing the remains of soap and leaf slime from her naked skin. Her beloved was nattering on about a book she’d read, apparently a less than impressive one._

_“I stayed up the whole night reading it too! ...Hope I didn’t wake you.” Bastila felt soft lips leave a gentle kiss on the back of her neck. “Sorry.”_

_“Is_ that _what you were grumbling and thrashing about for last night?” Bastila snorted. “I thought you were having another nightmare. Why the hell did you stay up reading it if you didn’t like it?”_

 _“Because it had a really good beginning!” Sera began gesticulating, splashing hot water around the cramped confines of the shower. “She was strutting around town like, grr, I’m a badass, and then wham! She hits this chick with her speeder and is all broken and frightened and pathetic and crying and you think ooo! Where’s the story going to go next? But then it ends with her sister berating the chick for getting mad about her hiding the accident and then it’s over like that’s happy or something? Like, oh no! It’s_ so bad _that you’re upset that this woman that’s been wooing you lied about being the one who broke all the bones in your body and almost killed you!” She sighed dramatically and slipped an arm around Bastila’s waist, resting her chin on her shoulder, her breasts pressed against Bastila’s back. “It was really frustrating, babe.”_

 _Bastila laughed, her whole body shaking with mirth._ Wooing? _“Oh, love,” she said, reaching back to caress the smooth skin of Sera’s backside. “If that’s the worst thing to happen to us this year, then we aren’t doing too badly.”_

The judder that ran through the ship jostled Bastila awake. A small child was kicking the back of her seat repeatedly, grumpy and over-tired from a too-long trip, their parent sprawled uncomfortably in the hard seat next to them. Bastila put a hand to the back of her neck. It was sore and cramping from the awkward angle she’d fallen asleep at. She checked her chrono. They must have docked with the shuttle terminal orbiting the planet. The overhead lights flicked on, stabbing her in the eyes with their bright illumination, the small child squawking in sympathy behind her. Bastila gathered the few items that she’d brought with her as an announcement over the PA system announced their arrival. She shuffled into the queue to disembark, eternally grateful that Mrs Bima had pushed a vending machine sandwich into her hands before they said their goodbyes. She was still exhausted and her head was aching and she needed to find a bathroom as soon as she was able to get off the ship but her stomach was no longer trying to eat itself on top of all that.

Booking passage on a shuttle down to the surface didn’t take long once her bodily needs had been seen to. She worked her way through the bustling streets of the planetary capital until she reached her destination. The entrance to _this_ police station was more grand. Not ornate, per se, but it definitely had more of a presence than either the main station on Garqi or there own little security office on Skybase Station. Bastila entered the building and approached the main desk, manned by an officer lazily flipping through a magazine, uncertain whether the busy atmosphere of the station was a good or a bad thing for her situation.

“Excuse me, Officer…” she checked their badge, “Daro…”

The desk sergeant looked up, the annoyed look on his face shifting to something that Bastila presumed was meant to be charming as he looked her over. “Why, hello there. What can the fine officers of Cassander do for you today?”

Bastila sighed, remembering the desk officer on Garqi’s comment about “assholes”. She placed the copy of Sera’s ID on the desk in front of him. “I’m here to report the disappearance of my partner. She was on her way back from a parts yard near Minashee to our home on Skybase Station but she didn’t make it home. I would like for you to find her.”

Officer Daro barely glanced at the document before pushing it back towards Bastila. “Skybase Station is in the Garqi system, isn’t it? I’m afraid you’ll have to report it to them.”

 _Of all the…!_ Bastila pushed the document back in front of the man with a little more force than was strictly necessary. “I reported it there. They told me that it wasn’t their jurisdiction and that I had to come to you.”

The man sighed and begrudgingly took the document as if he were doing her a great favour. “Well, your first problem is that this copy is no good. We need the original ID.” He offered it back to her with a smarmy smile. “Don’t feel too bad. It’s a common mistake.”

Bastila could feel a vein beginning to throb in her forehead. “I was told that a recent photo was enough.” She tapped angrily at the sheet of flimsi. “ _That’s_ all you need to do your job!”

“Did the bumpkins on Garqi tell you that?” Officer Daro laughed. “You’d think with all the caf they grow there that they could wake up for long enough to actually do their job.” He made a rude, buffoonish face that Bastila presumed was meant to mock his counterpart and laughed at his own crude joke.

Bastila calculated the satisfaction of dragging this man bodily over his desk to teach him a lesson versus the hassle it would cause. “Would a certified print of a service record suffice?” Heaven help him if he said no. _I am not going to traipse all the way back home and waste more than half a day that could be spent looking for Sera because of some man’s ego!_

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

Bastila turned, not waiting for him to say anything else, and marched out of the station. She thought she had seen a public communications booth on her walk from the terminal, she just had to find it.

As it so happened, the booth was almost all the way back to the shuttle terminal. Bastila fed some credits into the machine, keyed in the requisite contact information and waited for the call to connect.

A neat young woman in a military uniform flickered into view. “You have reached the offices of the Admiralty of the Navy of the Galactic Republic. How may I help you?”

“This is Bastila Shan.” She rattled off her security code. “Could you connect me through to Captain Onasi on the _Ascendency_? It’s very important.”

“Oh, um, Ms Shan? That code no longer works. It was retired after you--”

Her stomach clenched. “I know. Please, I just need to speak with Carth Onasi. It’s an emergency.”

The young woman sighed and muttered something under her breath. Then she typed something quickly into her console. “I’m putting you through now. Don’t do this again.”

The other woman’s image dissolved into static and Bastila heard the sound of her call being redirected. “Thank you. I won’t.” She waited for Carth to pick up, her head getting increasingly sore in the midday sun. She squinted and rubbed her tired eyes, then stifled a yawn. She hated travelling between systems with different timezones. It always left her feeling for too similar to the single time that Mission had convinced her and Juhani to sample something blue and fruity and _far_ more alcoholic than it tasted, under the false impression that Force-sensitives didn’t get drunk. Or hungover.

The call clicked over and Carth Onasi’s form appeared in the blue light of the communications booth, rumpled and half-dressed. “Hey, Bastila. What’s this about an emergency?”

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Bastila spied a shape on Carth’s bed that looked not unlike another person under the covers. Her lips quirked. “Did I interrupt something?”

Carth pulled the comm unit around by its base until an inoffensive was all she could see of his sleeping quarters. “Never you mind that,” he said, his cheeks turning a slightly darker blue in the monochromatic display.

Bastila bit back a smile. _I can’t wait to tell Sera this. She’ll be so amused after…_ Reality hit her like a physical blow, winding her. She couldn’t tell Sera what had happened. There was no Sera to tell.

“Bastila?”

“Sera’s gone missing. Um…” She swallowed thickly and shook herself, standing up straighter to focus on the task at hand. “I need you to send me a certified print of her service record so that I can file a missing person report.”

“What! How? Why? When?” The words came out quickly, Carth clearly as flustered by the situation as she was. “What do you mean? How did she go missing? How did this happen?”

Bastila took a deep breath. _How many more times am I going to have to repeat this story?_ “We had a small argument this morning, or rather yesterday morning now, and she left to get a part for a job while she cooled down. I called after she hadn’t come back and she definitely reached her destination and was on her way back…” _Was she truly though?_ “Um… Anyway, the officer on duty is being a nuisance about what information I need to produce and that’s why I need you to send the print though.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said as he reached into a drawer for a keycard. “I’m, uh, surprised you don’t have a print yourself already. I mean, wouldn’t that be the kind of information you would want to keep with you when you retire into civilian life?”

“Yes, well, I _do_ have the original. As in the very first one?” she said as tactfully as possible, mindful of being in a very public space.

Carth frowned and shrugged as he pulled up the file on his system. “Yeah?”

Bastila sighed. _So much for subtlety._ “I have the original file from when she first entered the Republic military? With _all_ of her information?” _Well, all of the information that we could collect anyway…_ “Besides, that file is five hours away from me at the moment.”

“Five…! Where the hell are you?” Carth peered around her as if he would be able to see more of her location than the projector captured.

“Cassander. There was some nonsense about jurisdiction and space lanes…” Bastila rubbed her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. “It is a _long_ story.”

“You can fill me in on the details some other time then.” He pressed a few more buttons and inserted the keycard into a slot. “This just needs to finish authorizing before I can transmit it.”

Bastila let out a weary breath and fed a few more credit chips into the machine to stop the call from disconnecting. “Would you mind telling the others what happened? I don’t think I can face repeating myself again when I still have to give a statement and…” A thought struck her. _Bugger._ “And I’m going to have to call all of our clients to explain why I’m pushing all of their jobs back. And find a ship...” _And rent some equipment until we find the Hawk and absorb the cost of a very expensive grinder pump, as well as put out the money for another pump unless I can push the Pashna job back far enough, rearrange some other jobs and only complete after Sera comes home. Damn it all to hell._

Carth typed a final command in and Bastila heard the booth’s internal printer whir to life. “Sure, not a problem. I’ll pass Sera’s description around the Fleet too. She can’t have gotten so far that the whole Republic Navy can’t find her.”

Bastila bent to retrieve the printout, not trusting her voice at the moment. It looked very official with its embossed flimsi and the embedded holographic certification seal. She dug in her pocket and paid the printing fee. “Thank you, Carth. I’m sorry, I wish I could stay and catch up but…”

Carth waved her apologies away. “You go do what you need to do and, look, thanks for telling me, Bastila.” With that, he waved goodbye and ended the call. Bastila collected her change from the machine and strode briskly back the way she came, careful not to damage or crease the precious printout.

She walked straight up to the front desk, hoping that a different officer might be on shift (no such luck), and slapped the service record down in front of Officer Daro, who was playing a game on his datapad.

“Is that good enough for you?” she demanded.

Officer Daro sighed and inspected the document, making a face as though it had been found wanting. “It’ll do,” he said begrudgingly. “You know, I’m not supposed to accept anything but original identification documents but,” he smiled his greasy smile, “I’m sure I can make an exception for such a pretty lady.” He inspected Sera’s record more thoroughly. “Oh, a former cop!”

Bastila blinked. “Yes, that’s right.” She’d forgotten about the former career they’d made up for Sera, particularly since Sera herself seemed to have mentally rejected not long after regaining full consciousness. She glanced at the image on the record of a Sera Khan in police uniform, a stern, no-nonsense set to her face that looked so alien on her features as to be almost comical. Bastila remembered the day that photo had been taken, Sera propped up against a screen, naked except for underwear and a catheter from the waist down, the skin of her left leg a patchwork of stitches and bruises from multiple surgeries, a mass of wires just out of sight of the camera running out of the back of her head, controlling her facial expression and stopping her from drooling all over herself, the left side of her face still subtly swollen from the insertion of her new eye the week prior, the--

Officer Daro slapped the desk, jerking Bastila back to the present. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said far too cheerfully. He turned to a cabinet behind his desk and fished out some forms and presented them to Bastila to fill out. “At least I know that you have a thing people in uniform now.”

Bastila snatched the form away and reached for the provided stylus, a scathing remark sitting heavily on her tongue waiting to be released. She took a deep breath and began filling in the form, the stylus digging into the flimsi with the force of her ire. _As if she deserved any less notice because of her career choices!_

“Deralia… Where’s that?” Officer Daro was apparently still perusing Sera’s record.

“Tammuz sector. It’s a long way from here,” she said flatly. Did she have to list all of Sera’s scars? You could barely see most of them…

“Oh, another bumpkin… So where are you from, sweetheart?”

“None of your business.” _You don’t get to call me that!_

“Hmm, fine… bitch,” he finished under his breath, loud enough for her to hear but quietly enough to be able to claim that she’d misheard him if she made an issue of it.

She kept her head down, refusing to be baited. There wasn’t much more of the form to be completed. She left out their argument when writing her descriptions of the events that had led to her being in this station. Knowing Officer Asshole, it would only confuse the issue. She scratched the palm of her right hand absent-mindedly and scanned the document, trying to think of any other information that could be of use to them. After some hesitation, she added their home address and contact details. She knew that Officer Daro was going to misuse that information but it was a necessary evil. She included Dua Sovv’s contact information, as well as a full description of the Ebon Hawk and its registration number. Bollocks, was she going to have to file a report about the missing ship as well?

Giving it one last read through to make certain that she hadn’t missed anything or made any spelling errors, she handed the completed form back to Officer Daro.

“Is there anything else you need from me?”

He glanced over it, hmming and hawing at the information. “Not that I can see but I’m sure I’ll think of something soon,” he said with a lewd wink. He took the precious printout, made a copy of it on the rickety copier behind him, scrunched up the original and threw it in the trash.

“Hey!”

“Hmm?” Officer Daro gave her a smarmy grin. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

The loud bang of the entrance doors being kicked open saved him from a punch straight to his smug face. A heavy duffle bag skidded through the doorway, followed by a large, muscular form carrying a struggling Rodian under one arm and another over their shoulder. The horned figure sauntered casually inside and the stray duffle bag lifted off the tiled floor to join its brethren floating behind the intruder. Bastila stared in disbelief, then growled under her breath.

Aleran Staulkie, apparently-Knighted Jedi Guardian and number one saber deflection champion, Year 6, jostled the kicking and squealing youth on her shoulder, foiling their attempt to escape, as she approached the front desk.

“I say,” she drawled in her obnoxious voice, “I don’t suppose one of you chaps wouldn’t mind taking care of these fellows for me? I picked them up off the street for you.”

Bastila, Year 6 saber deflection number two, quickly turned back around to the desk to avoid detection, only to see Officer Daro scuttling away.

“Hey! I’m not done with you!”

“Well, well. If it isn’t little Bastila.”

 _Dammit._ Bastila turned around, craning her neck up to meet Ran’s gaze. The duffle bags were nowhere in sight and the two youths were being manhandled away by several uniformed officers.

“Hello, Ran.” _Although, she never did manage to beat a certain someone’s record, so there is that._

There was a commotion. One of the Rodians was loudly complaining about his rights in Huttese while the other stood crying and shaking surrounded by large men, looking very small. Bastila indicated the situation with a tilt of her head.

“Are you certain that is necessary,” she said quietly.

“A Jedi has to act with justice and firmness for the good of all. Not that _you_ would know anything about that.” The officers hustled the young men out of sight and they were gone, disappeared into the depths of the justice system. Ran shook her head. “What in the world are you doing in a place like this? Bailing that low-life civilian of yours out of jail?” Ran grinned. “Or has she left you for some floozy already and taken all of your money with her?”

Bastila scowled. “No, Ran, she hasn’t left me. She’s missing.”

The taller woman threw her head back and roared with laughter.

“It’s not funny! I want her home and safe with me!” An unpleasant thought occurred to Bastila. “Do you know something about her disappearance?”

This earned her an even bigger laugh. “As if I didn’t have better things to do!”

Bastila bit her lip. Should she risk further complications and tell Ran _why_ a member of the Jedi Order might want to take an interest in the disappearance of “Sera Khan”? It seemed highly unlikely that she had any idea who she was bad-mouthing but _someone_ in the Order did, someone who shouldn’t have access to that information and was spreading it around liberally enough for random Jedi to be aware of it. Acid churning in her stomach, Bastila opened her mouth to take a chance.

“She’s probably at the bottom of a midden, sozzled out of her mind,” Ran said, cutting Bastila off. “Isn’t that what she has you doing? Mucking around in sewers?”

“How dare you! Do you have any idea how much excrement you would be buried under if it weren’t for people like us?” Bastila said, all thought of sharing information evaporating in the heat of Ran’s indifference and the fury of having to already have used her connections to obtain the most basic of help. She poked Ran hard in the chest. “Your position in life depends on people like me and yet you can’t even be bothered to show us some basic decency!”

Ran smirked, glancing over at something behind Bastila. She turned her head and saw an officer waiting impatiently for them to finish their conversation.

“Excuse me, little Bastila. Some of us have business to attend to that can’t be done by any simpleton off the streets.”

And she swaggered off, head held proudly high, leaving Bastila to stomp her foot in frustration. It was childish but it was better than standing there impotently while her former fellow student was welcomed with open arms into the very establishment that had her jumping through hoops.

“Excuse me, ma’am? You can go.”

“What?” It was the officer from a moment ago.

“Daro filed your report. There’s nothing more you can do at the moment but wait for a detective to contact you. You can go home now.”

The woman waited a moment for a response, before turning and leaving when none was forthcoming. Bastila stared dumbly at her retreating back, a flat and empty feeling opening up in the pit of her stomach. She stumbled outside, blinking in the light of the early afternoon. It was honestly a beautiful day. She hadn’t noticed before. There was a light breeze coming off the ocean freshening the city air and people were peacefully going about their business, chatting with their friends, walking their pets. Bastila walked numbly back to the shuttle terminal, a pervasive sense of unreality fogging her thoughts. She bought a cheap and bitter cup of caf before boarding the shuttle for the orbital terminal, which she drank as they took off, her eyes gritty and sore and her hand still itching and aching mysteriously. She watched out the window as the landscape turned small and distant and blue, the sky enveloping them until they pierced the planetary atmosphere and swam in a sea of blackness.

The trip back home was spent in a restless and uncomfortable slumber. She changed transports at Garqi and arrived back at Skybase a little after ten in the morning. Her head thick and her stomach complaining about missing breakfast, she made her winding way back to the apartment from the Central Quarter where the public transports docked. There weren’t too many people about by the time she got to the gently inclined streets of the Residential Quarter, most people either at work or at school at this time of day, only a few housespouses and freelancers such as themselves that were free to come and go as they pleased.

She let herself into the apartment. The lights were all off and everything was as it had been when she had left the apartment the night before. Even that the note that Mrs Bima had written in case Sera had come back while they were away was lying undisturbed on the kitchen counter. Bastila switched a few lights on and sank onto the couch, staring blankly at the wall. She knew she needed to do something, make some calls to their clients and suppliers, inform station security of the situation, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

The numbers on the chrono ticked over and the grumbling of her stomach finally pushed her to her feet. She switched the kettle on and reached for her mug, only to realize that it was still half-full of unfinished tea that she’d neglected to throw out last night. She did so now, washing it quickly and popping a bag in, almost retrieving a second mug out of force of habit. Lacking the energy or inclination to make a proper meal for her late breakfast, she opened the fridge to see if they had anything that would catch her interest. Sera’s Alderaanian Braid stared at her from the second shelf, the only cooked item in the fridge, in fact. Bastila hesitated. Should she try to keep it for when Sera got home? Reluctantly, she pulled it out, inspecting the item. The glaze was already a sticky mess and the pastry was losing its crispness. It would need to be thrown out if it wasn’t eaten soon. She bit into it, the smooth creaminess of the custard balancing well with the flaky pastry. It was a little sweeter than she liked, far richer than anything she would care to eat for breakfast. But Sera enjoyed it, liked the richness, liked the stickiness of the glaze, the texture of the pastry and the custard.

Bastila swallowed and took another bite, the sticky glaze coating her lips. She imagined what their day would have been like if she followed after Sera, if she had gone to get breakfast in her stead, if she had said the right combination of words to make her stay. She pictured Sera vocally savouring each bite of the pastry, occasionally stopping to critique and review what she was eating or speculate as to the method of its creation, flaky crumbs of pastry and custard sticking to her lips. (How sweet those crumbs would have tasted.) She licked the jammy glaze off her lips. Perhaps Sera would have taken her line of investigation one step farther, looking up a recipe or asking Mrs Bima. Hurrying down to the Market Quarter for ingredients, swearing and cursing her way through the recipe, waking Bastila from her nap covered in flour and smelling of bread dough and custard.

The sweet pastry stuck in her throat, impossible to swallow. Tears rolled uncontrollably down her face as she collapsed into sobs, shoulders shaking convulsively as she clutched onto the open fridge door for support.

Sera wasn’t coming home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: eye trauma, helplessness, general goriness

It was sweltering. Something was picking roughly at the back of her head, sharp and uncomfortable. Her body felt like a dead weight, her limbs lying limp and useless off the edge of a hard surface, her head throbbing. A heavy weight was between her shoulder blades, pressing the air out of her lungs, making it difficult to breathe. The fog in her head cleared a little and she was able to separate the sensation out as a coarse hand poking and prodding low on her head, just below her skull, accompanied by something sharp being scraped forcefully against her skin. She winced at the harsh treatment and struggled in vain to raise a hand to put a stop to it.

The scraping stopped while she still fought with her limbs and she felt the point of something metallic digging into the flesh around the implant port at the base of her skull. Then not just digging but cutting, gouging into her. Alarm rang sharply in her mind, mixing with the unbelievable pain and providing her with the strength to raise her arm, grasp the coarse hand and make the pain go away.

Her hand was casually batted away. There was a low grumbling above her and she struggled furiously to break free. She was grabbed roughly by the hair and had her head thumped into the hard surface, in the same offhanded way one might thump a holoprojector that wasn’t working. Then something sharp was jabbed into her spine, a needle or a thin knife, and her limbs dropped dead and lifeless to the ground. She whimpered, the only sound she could make, her breathing shallow and painful. Her assailant poked at the back of her head with whatever tool they were using, increasing the pressure until tears leaked from her eyes. Finally satisfied that she was incapable of retaliation, they got back to work. Crude metal was pushed clumsily into the flesh around her port, bruising and pinching her until it found a good grip on the delicate machinery implanted just beneath her skull. A blade was inserted rapidly around the edges of the port, mangling her flesh, not unlike a baker loosening a cake from a tin. Then the pulling began. Sera tensed, breathing rapidly through her nose, the smell of stale sweat and her own blood pricking the air, uncertain if she was trying to scream or push her attacker away from her. The pain was excruciating, the sensation of the gossamer fine wires interfacing between the implant and her lower brain and spinal cord being slowly torn out of her was unlike anything she’d ever felt. She scrabbled for the Force but it kept eluding her grasp in the pain and fog of her mind. Then there was a pop and her forehead smacked into the hard surface as the port came free.

She cried out as loudly as she could, only a pathetic mewling noise making it out of her numb lips. Blood ran down her neck freely, her assailant not bothering to staunch the flow. She wondered what the hell they were going to do with her next when the hand began pawing at her face, prodding and inspecting her flesh. Heart racing, Sera jerked her head away only for it to be caught in an iron grip. A dirty finger came into view and her left eyelid was prised open. Sera watched in horror as the finger tapped against her artificial eyeball, every instinct and pain sensor recoiling at the too-close touch. She tried to blink. The thumb digging into the top of her eye socket stopped her. She tried to pull away but couldn’t muster the strength. Cold metal, a pair of tongs, bumped into her eye. Then was forced into her eye socket, catching the skin of her eyelid and dragging it into the space around her eye. Sera screamed, or tried to. Her assailant pulled, the skin around her eye impeding their progress. They sliced her eyelid off, turning Sera’s vision red. Her eye began flashing error messages as it was extracted from her skull. Her heart pounded in her chest, sending spurts of blood from her wounds. They pulled and pulled, stretching her optic nerve, her vision becoming more and more distorted. There was some fumbling, the grip on her head loosened, and the vision from her left eye went dark as a large pair of scissors snipped through the nerve.

Sera wept, staring in shock as her eye was deposited on a shallow tray next to her implant port, its dark brown iris staring back at her. She didn’t think that she’d ever quite appreciated the level of craft that had gone into its construction. It was unnervingly lifelike.

“What are you doing? You’ve ruined it!”

Blood was pouring from her empty socket. She was going to go into shock if she couldn’t slow her racing heart.

“Sir, you said retrieve all…”

“Urgh! Use your brains, you witless oaf!  _ Obviously  _ I was going to use this one for my personal use, which I  _ can’t  _ now that you’ve mangled it!”

She had to calm down. She had to not panic but it was difficult when she was in agony and bleeding and she couldn’t move and she needed to close her eye to stop the blood but there was no more eye to close.

“How much tranquilizer did you use? It looks like you’ve damaged its brain.”

“Sir, it fought back. I had to…”

“I don’t  _ care _ . Throw it in one of the cells. It’s  _ useless _ now!”

Fighting through the pain and whatever she’d been drugged with, she finally caught the barest wisp of the Force. She tugged on it gingerly, threading it around her wounds, drawing in as much of her own blood as she could, stemming its flow. Her grip was tenuous and she could feel fresh blood trickling down her face and neck.

“Go suck on an exhaust pipe, you limp-dicked, shit-fucking streak of piss.”

Presumably, the “Sir” was gone. The heavy weight was lifted from her back, letting precious oxygen flow into her lungs. An odd buzzing sound filled the air. The lights overhead flickered, then flared, sharp and bright. A thunderous boom like death ripped through the air, shaking everything, the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

“Fucking kids with their fucking gun.” There was the click of an intercom, followed by some swearing and irritated slapping at a control panel, then another click. “Stupid, fucking piece of shit. Nothing fucking works here any more. Janta, Daleth! You can come get the other one.”

Sera focused on maintaining control over her blood flow as she was dragged outside into the scorching heat and across a long stretch of gravel into another building. Coordination was slowly returning to her limbs and she was just about able to protect her head as she was thrown into a small cell and a heavy door was locked behind her. She bounced off a duracrete wall and collapsed on top of something warm and sticky with blood.

Every inch of her felt bruised. Her bare legs and feet were starting to complain about being dragged over sharp gravel and her stomach was revolting against whatever the hell she’d been injected with to keep her docile. And her head… Well, her head was still attached to her shoulders, so that was a positive. Grappling to maintain the delicate balance between keeping what was left of her blood on the inside, she cautiously tilted her head up to inspect her surroundings. Light from a single glow panel in the ceiling reflected harshly off the rotten and peeling paint covering the walls and floors. A smell of blood, human waste and mould pervaded the tiny space with the hint of something else underneath it that Sera couldn’t quite place. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a bleak place.  _ Taris Undercity maybe, although that wasn’t quite so… institutional _ .

The body beneath her groaned, blood pulsing out of open wounds weakly. She shifted to get a better view. It was her adversary from the bad guy ship this morning. Or whenever.

“Fucking hell!” His leg was missing and there was a gaping hole in his torso where his kidneys and liver should be. Sera whipped her t-shirt awkwardly off and stuffed it into the hole to stop the bleeding, wrapping her hand over the stump of his leg at the same time.

“It’s okay. Just stay calm. We’re both gonna get out of this.” She pushed what she could of the Force into him, wishing she were a better healer than the very crude field medic that she was. A fresh stream of blood ran down her face as her grip on her own condition slipped and she swayed, lightheaded. She tucked her head into her shoulder to apply pressure to her eye socket and continued until the ashen colour left the young man’s cheeks.

He coughed wetly. “Where the hell are we?”

“Some kinda military base.” She gingerly drew her head away from her against her shoulder. The clot seemed to be holding. “Fucking funny kinda military base though.”

“Dumb bitch,” he said casually. “We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t interfered with our heist.”

“Yeah, well, we can debate that  _ after _ we get out of here.” She pulled her hand away from his stump. She was going to have to figure out a way to dress it with what little they had with them.

“How.”

“What?” Maybe she could use part of his pants. They didn’t look too dirty and she was running out of clothes herself.  _ Too bad his boot doesn’t use laces. _

“How’re we going to get out of here? We’re both thoroughly incapacitated in the middle of an unknown base filled to the brim with heavily armed men and we have no way of knowing where my ship is. How the fuck are we supposed to get out of that, huh?”

Sera’s head felt light and not from her injuries this time. She licked her lips. “We’ll think of something.”  _ The day wasn’t supposed to go like this. I should be at home with Bastila. This wasn’t supposed to happen. _

He rolled onto his side, turning his back on her. “Right. You tell me when you come up with this magic plan of yours.”

~~~

There was a grating in the ceiling, Sera realized, through which you could see up to the storey above. If you paid attention, which was difficult, occasionally you would notice the undersole of a boot tread across the upper part of the grating. Sera reflexively glanced at her wrist, making a disgusted noise at herself when her eye saw only bare skin. How long had it been?  _ Bastila must be pretty fucking worried by now. And I left her with no ship unless T3 managed to get it home. Fuck, I’m thirsty.  _ They hadn’t been bothered in the time since they’d been thrown in here, which was great, fucking stellar if their previous taste of their host’s hospitality was anything to go by. But it also meant that their captors might not be interested in feeding them. Which was less great.  _ Seriously, how fucking long has it been? _

“Nobody’s coming for us,” her roommate said, breaking the silence. “You might as well give up.”

“Shush, I’m trying to count.” She could hear a fairly regular drip somewhere nearby, as well as what might have been the roar of a sea.  _ That’s what I was smelling! _ Not that she could smell much with her nose gunked up with blood and snot.  _ Small miracle in a place like this… _

Her roommate harrumphed and turned back to face the wall. There was barely enough room for him to stretch out on the floor and the cramped quarters meant the Sera was hunched up in one corner to avoid the foetid puddle of foul-smelling water in the center of the floor. She guessed that there was meant to be a drainage grate under that puddle but that it had clogged up or collapsed over the years. Everything felt damp. Hot and damp, sweat stinging her eye and… not-eye, running down her body and stinging the abrasions on her legs.

She pressed her bare back against the cool duracrete, not wanting to get the open wound on the back of her neck too close to the grody walls but welcoming the relief from the hot day. Or night. So she sat in her bra and her comfy, day-off shorts, tapping and counting and sweating.

Sera tilted her head and listened, her neck feeling hot, swollen and stiff. It sounded like her calculations had been correct. She unbent awkwardly from the floor, her limbs feeling heavy and numb beneath her and took up position under the ceiling grate, straddling the gross puddle.

She took a deep breath, waiting for the footsteps to get closer, ready to project her voice upwards. “Hey, you with the face! Can we get some water down here? It’s fucking hot!”

For a moment there was no response and Sera wondered if the guard had moved on. Then a stream of hot piss cascaded down on her head through the grate. Sera flinched out of the way and there was a rough female laugh from above.

Sera spat the foul liquid out of her mouth. “Yeah, fuck you too, buddy.”

The voice laughed harder and stomped off. Sera shook what she could out of her hair, being careful not to get any on her companion.

“Good job, idiot.”

“I am trying to get home to my loved ones!” Sera snapped.

“You just don’t get it. All you civilians are the same, thinking life is like the holos but it’s not. We are going to die here,” he said, enunciating each word clearly, his colour not looking good. “And there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

Sera couldn’t think of a snappy comeback to that. Her head was aching, more than aching actually, and she was starting to realize that the tingly feeling across her skin hadn’t fully left her even after she’d gotten off the hard floor. She flexed her fingers, noting the ever so slight numbness in them. Was it merely due to her injuries or was this a permanent feature of her life now? Her stomach clenched and her head swam. Shit, how was she going to get any sleep when it was taking every shred of concentration she had to not keel over? What if she sprang a leak in her sleep and bled out while she was unconscious? As if to prove her point, a large, bloody blob fell from her eye and splashed onto the dirty floor beneath her.

Her ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps. The second guard was making their rounds. She peered up through the grating, catching sight of her target as they passed overheard munching on something.

“Hey!” She heard her roommate groan behind her. “How long is it going to be until we get any service? It’s been fucking hours! What kind of establishment is this anyway?” She took a deep breath, channelling her beloved. “I’d like to speak to your manager!”

There was a scoff and the sound of a fly being opened.

“No, no! The other guard did that! Do something different!” She banged impatiently on the door. “Come on! We haven’t got all day! Hurry the fuck up!”

There was a mean laugh and they strode off in a different direction from the one in which they had been heading. Sera listened intently. They went down some stairs, metallic, slightly old by the sound of it. Not too far from their cell either. A locked gate was opened and then closed behind them. Echoing steps down a narrow corridor. No click of a keypad or inserted keycard, so either a biometric lock or a card scanner on their door. Then the door swung open and the guard, large, red-faced and sweating, filled the frame. The first blow glanced off the edge of Sera’s shoulder. The second caught her square in the temple. She fought back as well as she was able but soon she was on the floor, huddled into a foetal position while the guard rained savage blows down onto her bruised and broken body. She wrapped her arms around her head and waited for the guard to tire and lose interest, whimpering pathetically with each blow.

“Courtesy of the Sith Empire,” he said, making her flinch. Then he spat on her and walked out the cell, laughing as he slammed the door shut behind him.

Sera pulled herself inward where she lay on the filthy floor, hugging herself as she sobbed into the noxious puddle of rotting fluids in the center of the room. Her companion ignored her, obviously thinking that she’d brought this on herself with her stupidity. The smell of fresh blood hit her nose and she felt warmth flowing out of her wounds. A tendril of panic shot through her and she refocused her mental energies on her own body, lying frozen and tense until she could feel the scabs over her injuries reforming, sealing her precious fluids in her body where they belonged. She took stock of her body, noting that she’d been successful in blocking or redirecting the worst of the guard’s attacks.  _ And only the worst. Ow! This was a dumb plan! _ She winced as she unfolded from around her prize, kept safe from harm in the crook of her stomach.

She took a generous bite of the guard’s sandwich and gagged. It was filled with some kind of heavily processed meat product slathered in a fruity sauce that was both sharp and overly sweet at the same time. She choked down her bite and poked her roommate in the shoulder.

“Here.” She held out the rest of the sandwich to him.

He looked shocked. “How…?”

“That was all he had on him. No keycard or anything like that, so the doors probably have handprint sensors unless the passcode is built into their uniforms.” She turned her head and held a thumb to one nostril, blowing sharply to expel a blood clot from her nose. “Uh, no weapon either, unfortunately.” Could she push the door open, run at full speed to wherever they kept their ships and get both of them to safety without getting blown to fucking bits first? She swayed precariously.  _ Maybe after some rest… _

Her companion barked out a laugh, making her jump. “You’d make a good officer pulling stupid shit like that. We had a lieutenant like you when we got captured by the Mandalorians.”

“Oh. Um…”

“They eviscerated him and strung up his corpse by his entrails,” he said, far too calmly by Sera’s standards, hungrily devouring the sandwich.

“Uh… Thanks?” She squinted at him. “Aren’t you a little young to have fought in the Mandalorian Wars?” He looked younger than Bastila, although she admittedly wasn’t the best at guessing people’s ages.

“I lied about my age when I signed up. The Jedi Revan gave a big, fancy speech and everyone was hyped and not checking too hard. And then I got shot to pieces.” He spat to indicate his opinion of that.

“Uh-huh.” Sera felt her stomach twisting itself into a tight knot of guilt. She heard that odd buzzing again from the glow panel above, the air charged with static and a sense of doom hanging heavily over her head. The light flickered and dimmed. Then a sense-shattering boom split the air, shaking the cell and causing crumbling duracrete and flakes of paint to dislodge from the walls and ceiling.

“That doesn’t sound healthy,” her roommate said, ignoring her frozen silence as he patted the resulting dust and debris off himself, groaning when he disturbed the t-shirt lodged in the hole in his torso.

Sera jerked out of her horrified reverie. “Has the wound broken open again? Have you started bleeding?” She ever so carefully examined her makeshift bandage. The skin around the wound was hot and discoloured but didn’t seem to be bleeding. The blood-soaked t-shirt needed to be changed for something cleaner, really,  _ really _ needed to be changed in a place like this, but they didn’t have anything to swap it out for and Sera didn’t want to disturb the wound more than was necessary.

“I’m fine.” His face was contorted in pain and he was breathing hard. “Leave it to those fucking Sith to ruin my day. As if they haven’t done enough as it is.”

“Mm.” Sera kept her head down, pretending to be engrossed in what she was doing.

“Didn’t think there’d be any of them left in this part of space. Stupid Hulo must have  _ really _ fucked up his route.”

_ That must have been one of the ones HK-- _ “Those guys friends of yours?”

He laughed again, then groaned, clutching his stomach. “I just work with them. I don’t care how many of them your droid shot in the face. If we ever get out of here, I’ll just find a new crew.” Sweat rolled down his face and he twisted restlessly. “Although, that doesn’t seem likely at this point.”

Sera held a hand to his head. He felt hot but she couldn’t tell if it was because he had a fever or simply because it was fucking hot down in their little, damp cell. He didn’t feel much hotter than herself but that didn’t mean much of anything either.

“Maybe you should get some rest,” she said, easing another tendril of the Force into the young man, pushing the heat out of his body.

“Yeah, sure.” His face crumpled and Sera found her hand gripped with a surprising amount of force. “You’ll stay here, right? You won’t let anything happen to me?”

She rested a comforting hand on his shoulder, calling on every mental power she had to mask the dread and foreboding rattling around in her gut. “It’s okay. Nothing’s going to happen to you while I’m here.” She swallowed. “Everything will be better after some rest.”

~~~

It wasn’t. Her patient only managed a few hours rest before waking up in need of assistance to relieve himself. Sera helped him up, surreptitiously doing what she could to nudge his failing kidneys along. He introduced himself as Wes Dasai.

“Feels rude for you not to know,” he said, grunting and sweating as she helped him onto his side. “Since you’re taking my pants off.”

She found that quite amusing and stored it away to tell Bastila later. It was a relief to have something to laugh about, even something fairly innocuous. Her few hours had been spent in a state of tense exhaustion, wanting to nod off but fearful what would happen if she did. She had gotten up once to test the door, just in case, and had spent the rest of the time with her ass on the cold, hard concrete next to Wes, worrying that he was going to start dying in his sleep and she would be helpless to stop it.

While she sat, tired and feverish, she had time to work out a scheme to harvest the condensation clinging to the walls and, now that her roommate was awake, she could test it out. They discussed their options and Sera set to running Wes’s remaining sock over the mouldy walls, soaking up as much moisture as she could. Sucking brackish water out of a stale sock was… an experience but they both agreed that it was better than using their underwear.

Wes had an uncle he didn’t talk to. His parents had died in a speeder accident when he was a kid and his mother’s brother, a metal worker on an industrial planet, had taken him in.

“He was pretty fucking pissed when I signed up, threatening to kick me out if I went through with it but we made up after that and we would call back and forth when we could. He took me out for ice cream the first leave I got.”

That had changed as the war progressed and Wes lost his leg and exposure to chemical weapons ruined his kidneys. He’d been fitted with standard military replacements, low-cost prosthetics that were heavy and needed a lot of long-term maintenance but got the job done, and got stuck back into the business of war until a substance abuse problem with one of his medications had gotten him kicked out in the end. He skirted around it but Sera suspected that he’d… followed Revan into war more than once.

“What about you?”

“Huh?” Sera’s knees had crept up and up closer to her chest as his story had gone on and was huddled tightly into herself by now, thinking about the millions of taxpayers’ credits it must have cost to convince everybody that a wreckage of a human being barely had a scratch on her.

“You got anyone waiting for you?”

“Oh, I’ve, uh…” She instinctively reached in her pocket, only to find it empty. Naturally. “Fuck, I actually thought for a second that they would…” She gestured vaguely at her head. “And would still leave my wallet behind.” Her heart broke just a little bit more. She’d kept the holograph of her, Bastila and Helena in there. It had been taken on their last vacation together before Helena’s health had started to fail. “Um. To answer your question, I have… my girlfriend’s waiting for me. At home. I left her and I should have been back by now…”

Sera trailed off.  _ I’m so fucking stupid. If I had only kept my temper. If I only weren’t…  _ But she couldn’t change that, couldn’t snap her fingers and magically change herself into something she wasn’t. Erase everything that she’d done.

“I should never have said any of those things to her.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be home soon and you can make it up to her then.” Wes didn’t even bother to sound convincing.

She sniffed. “And I left her at home without a ship or any way to get around and I took the droids and all of your equipment with me…”

Wes patted her on the shoulder. “You’re going to make up with your girlfriend and I’m going to… I’m going to find my uncle and catch up with him and everything’s going to be okay.”

She reflexively reached up to rub the tears from her eyes and jerked her hand away in horror when her fingers encountered a slimy discharge. She recoiled, flicking her fingers urgently away from her to get rid of the substance, get rid of the sensation of it clinging to her skin.

Wes had urged her to get some sleep after that, promising that he’d wake her if his condition changed. She slept fitfully, plagued by the usual dreams of vague horror and death that haunted her nights, intermingled with new visions of violence, of limbs getting blown off, of a man’s jaw rotting off his face as he screamed and writhed. In the end, the heat woke her, dragging her back to the world of the conscious exhausted and on edge. Wes was on his back with his eyes closed and an odd sound coming out of his open mouth. Sera’s heart stopped, thinking that he was drowning in his own fluids as he slept. Then she realized that he was just snoring. She flopped back against the wall, bringing her hand up to run over her face before remembering why that was a bad idea and knitted her fingers together tightly in frustration. She let her head rest against the wall and closed her eyes. Eye. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t bring herself to even try, but she could just sit and do nothing. Rest as best as she could and give her body the time and energy it needed to knit itself back together.

She took a deep breath of the disgusting air and let it out slowly. Her head felt like an over-inflated balloon. Or a giant, disgusting pimple, ready to pop. Her body and face were hot and damp and she couldn’t tell if she was sweating or if she had weird gunk oozing out of her head and over the rest of her body. Had the infection reached her brain yet? It had to have by now, right? Her brain hurt, a dull, oppressive thud interspersed with sharp spikes of pain shattering her concentration. She reached into her dwindling reserves of energy, difficult in the heat and the exhaustion and the pain, and turned her focus inward, moving her body’s resources around to aid in the healing process. She focused as long as she could until fatigue ripped her body’s control from her grasp, leaving her numb and spent, too tired to even move.

Sera squinted up at the overly bright glow panel. Was it flickering again or was she starting to see things? The sporadic firing of the base’s cannon had continued while they sat and stewed, scaring the piss out of Sera every time it went off and threatened to bring the fucking ceiling down on their heads. She’d lost track of the time, one of the earth-shattering firings disturbing the drip she’d been using as a timepiece. She also stopped keeping track of the guards passing overhead, frightened that they would remember their “guests” languishing just a floor below and decide to use them as entertainment. She stared at the flickering light, not moving, not even thinking, feeling time slipping through her fingers while Wes snored and grumbled in his sleep, his skin mottled and discoloured, his breathing irregular.

In the end, her parched throat pushed her wearily to her feet and she harvested what she could of the moisture from the walls. There was nobody else to do it anyway. She sucked her portion of the collected water thirstily out of the sock and set the rest aside for Wes. She looked over the walls, wondering if she could harvest enough to slake their thirst and rinse out Wes’s injuries. Maybe if she reduced her portion and tried wiping down the less filthy parts of the ceiling and floor?

The boom caught her off guard. The glow panel flickered and flared impossibly bright, then the light fitting within the unit gave a loud pop and the cell plunged into darkness.

Sera waited. Maybe this was just a temporary thing? She reached up awkwardly, banged the glow panel. Nothing. Maybe the whole base’s power had gone out? She rattled the cell door. Nope. Unless the doors had been rigged to remain locked even in the event of a major power failure, in which case they were fucked either way.

“Shit…”

“Sera?” A hand gripped her ankle and she had to force herself to not jump out of her skin like a tiny baby. “What the hell happened?”

_ That’s a good question. _ “Power surge knocked our lights out, I think?”

The hand tightened convulsively, almost painfully. “Fuck, this is it, isn’t it? They’re going to leave us to die in the dark.”

Sera tried to pull her ankle back to no avail. “I’m sure maintenance will come and fix the panel, even if they just throw us into a different cell to do it.”

But they didn’t and Sera had to admit that it did indeed seem as if they were being left in the dark to rot. If she thought it had been bad before, the concept of time seemed to slip and distort even further. She could no longer tell the difference between a minute and an hour. The border between the sleeping and the waking world seemed to dissolve and she was sometimes left wondering if something had happened or if she had merely dreamed it. Wes’s condition worsened, although it was difficult to tell in what way and how she might counter it without being able to see him. She still harvested the condensation off the walls and fed it to him as she had before but her sense of balance seemed to be off and it became difficult not to step on him as she did so. The minuscule scraps of moisture that she was able to collect helped, but the guard’s shitty meat sandwich, the weird, gross ration bar thing that she’d found on the Hawk, every meal that she had ever eaten felt like something that had happened to another person centuries ago. It finally dawned on her that that shitty sandwich was going to be the last meal either of them ever ate.

“This is all my fault.” The words came out shocked and hollow.

“What? No,” Wes said weakly, interrupted by a wet, hacking cough. “We were trying to steal your ship and you would probably have been sold into slavery anyway. I don’t blame you for trying to stop us.”

Sera shook her head, forgetting that Wes couldn’t see her. “No, no, you don’t understand. I mean  _ all _ of it! Why we’re here, why these fuckers are here, it’s all  _ my  _ fault!” And she told him. Everything. Who she was. How the Jedi had taken her from her flagship, kept her alive, turned her into something else. Let her loose on the galaxy after they were done with her. The cell became more and more quiet as she let out all that she’d been keeping inside, her account of her sins bouncing off the mouldy walls.

“...And everyone seems to expect me to just go on and I  _ ca _ \--”

Pain exploded on the side of her head, knocking her to the floor. She had enough time to register it as a punch when another caught her in the chest. Coughing weakly, she brought her hands up to fend off her attacker without hurting him, trying to use her legs to lever his bulk off of her. A scream was ripped from her throat when a fist collided with her ruined eye, shooting bolts of agony through her. Wes’s hands found her neck and started to squeeze, cutting off her air. She kicked him viciously, grabbing his wrists and doing her best to get him to release his hold. He grunted but didn’t let go. Her lungs burning from the lack of oxygen, she punched him in the stomach. And again, not stopping until Wes let out a pained cry and she felt blood pouring over her fist. His grip around her throat loosened and he fell down on top of her, crying and whimpering.

“Oh, shit! Fuck! Wes!” Sera scrabbled blindly to find where she’d hit him. She shoved a hand into the wound on his torso, trying to stem the flow of blood. “Stay with me, Wes! It’s all gonna be okay!”

He sobbed. “Don’t let me die. Fuck. Please don’t let me die!”

“I won’t. You just have to hold on!”

She carefully eased him onto his back, keeping the hand inside him as stable as possible while she felt around fruitlessly for the fallen t-shirt. Wes trembled and shivered, crying and moaning piteously as he bled out, writhing in agony. Giving up her search, she cradled the young man’s head tenderly, doing what she could to make him comfortable.

“It’s gonna be okay, I promise,” she pleaded, pushing every scrap of energy into him that she had, making her hands shake and head throb. “You just have to hold on a little bit longer and I promise I’ll fix all of this.”

His tremors slowed as his skin grew cooler and his cries weakened, then stopped as he lost consciousness. Sera held him helplessly as she felt his mental processes breaking down, his being unravelling as his brain failed and finally stopped.

A tear rolled down her cheek. She sniffed and wiped it away on her shoulder. Sera felt around Wes’s neck for his ID tags, carefully eased them over his head and slipped them around her own neck. She couldn’t bring him back, couldn’t undo what she’d done to him but she wasn’t going to let herself forget it. A choked sob escaped her and she broke down crying, hugging Wes’s lifeless body to herself. She smacked her head in frustration. _This wasn’t supposed to happen! We were both supposed to get out of here safe and sound!_ _I shouldn’t have said anything! Why couldn’t I keep my big, fat mouth shut?_ Her crying turned into uncontrollable sobs and howls of grief. Her whole body shook, her lungs and throat aching, snot and tears pouring unhindered down her face. The sobs turned into hiccups and she collapsed weakly over the body, completely drained.

She didn't know how long she lay there clutching the body of her victim and sniffling. It began to dawn on her that she was trembling for a reason other than grief or guilt. She shivered and shook, body seemingly unable to decide if she was too hot or too cold. It became impossible to think straight, impossible to maintain any kind of control over her body or her mind. Everything ached and throbbed, everything dissolving into a nightmarish slurry. It seemed to continue for an eternity until a blazing beam of light shone directly into her sensitive cornea. She squawked incoherently and threw a filthy arm over her face. After a moment, the cell door was pushed open and the cruel beam over light flicked over the room, accompanied by some disgruntled mutterings. Sera moaned as she was roughly forced aside by a booted foot. The intruder fiddled with the glow panel, swearing and grumbling in the dark. Then the light swung back down to the floor and a hand reached for Wes’s body. Sera cried out and clawed at the intruder, trying to protect her roommate, but she was slapped away and thrown to the ground. She blinked deliriously at the bright rectangle of the open door as Wes was dragged away, unable to even contemplate the opportunity right in front of her. The soldier returned, nudging her forcefully and sighing.

“Looks like the compost heap for you.”

She cried and squirmed as she was seizing by the arms and dragged out of the cell, up the stairs and out of the building into blistering daylight. Moving her legs weakly, she was somewhat able to keep pace with her captor, only catching her bare feet on the sharp, uneven gravel half of the time. The crack of the base’s gun made her flinch, almost pulling her from the soldier’s grasp but he grunted and grabbed her even more tightly as they marched away from the bulk of the clustered buildings. She felt the gun charging up for another shot, felt the electrical charge pricking the back of her neck. She pulled away from the soldier suddenly, slapping a hand into his chest and pushing with the scraps of energy that she could find within her. The guard swore as she was ripped from his grip. She caught a look of shock and confusion on his reddened face before she tripped and tumbled over jagged rock into a shallow ditch. The gun fired, its boom transforming into a thunderous roar, light flashing over the top of her tiny hole. The ground bounced up like a sheet that had been shaken out, then crashed down, raining rocky dirt down on top of her. There was the sound of rushing water and distant screams. Then everything was still.

~~~

It was night. An animal snuffled noisily nearby, smelling fresh blood and meat. A heavy rock dislodged from the pile of rubble and crashed into the ground behind it, sending it scrabbling away to safety.

There was the sound of enthusiastic boots crunching against rock and gravel. “Yeah! You run, you motherfucker!” The enthusiastic voice whooped and threw rocks after the retreating animal.

“Ghost!” a more serious voice yelled. “Stop playing around and focus on what we came for!”

The enthusiastic voice acquiesced and focused, “focusing” seeming to consist of rummaging through rubble and tossing rocks aside.

“Hey, Leader! I found a fresh one!”

A second set of boots wandered over and they both inspected the first’s find.

“Looks good. Tie it up with the rest and let’s finish up here.”

Another rock was dislodged from the pile and tumbled to the ground. The second set of boots approached to investigate, bending to dig through the rocks and the dirt. Sera winced as a calloused hand brushed gravel away from her face and there was a quiet gasp.

“Meat Head! I’m going to need your suit!” the serious voice said. “The King’s going to be interested in this.”


	4. Chapter 4

A bundle of tubing and cables cascaded down onto Bastila’s head. Cursing, she shoved them roughly back into the hatch from whence they came, banging her elbows against the narrow enclosure of the service duct.

Her comm crackled to life. “Okay, Bastila. I’m at Junction D. What have you got for me?”

She consulted her diagnostics tool. “There should be a crank to your left. Switch it over.” She closed the coolant valve and soldered a bridge between two terminals in preparation for the changeover.

“Which left? There’s no crank here, Bastila.” Sihle, her partner for this job sounded a little testy with her. “Which way am I supposed to be looking?”

“It’s a--” Dammit, there wasn’t much time until the system overheated. “It’s a crank, not rocket science! Just find it and switch it to the opposite setting that it is now!”

There was a beleaguered sigh on the other end. “There are a million buttons and switches here, Bastila. Just telling me to “use the one on my left” doesn’t help me.”

Bastila swore under her breath, quickly undoing all the prep work she did before it caused a system failure.  _ I  _ hate  _ working with people who can’t take instructions! It’s not the same without--  _ “There should be a large bank with many different controls and…” She tried to visualize it in her mind. “...an array of larger dials above three smaller ones spaced across the width of the bank. The crank you’re looking for is on the lower left below the dials.”

She listened to his heavy breathing as he clomped over to the bank in his full environmental suit. “Right. Got it.”

“No, don’t switch it over just yet!” Snatching a singed finger away from the hot solder, she redid her prior work hurriedly, ignoring Sihle’s frustrated muttering. “Alright, it’s ready. Switch it now.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

Bastila ground her teeth together, forcing herself to not make a response. They completed the rest of the job with as little interaction as possible, Sihle switching the music system in his suit back on and retreating into his own private world. Bastila packed up her meagre supply of worn and second-hand equipment, head throbbing dully with the headache that she’d had for the past six weeks and exited the facility. They passed each other on the way out, bidding each other farewell with civility if not friendliness. The circle of independent technicians was smaller than one might think in their chosen field of operation and there was no point in alienating someone you might have to work with at a later stage.  _ Unless there’s been some word… _ Not for the first time, Bastila replayed the events of that morning in her mind, wondering what she could have said or done differently to make everything right, to convince Sera to stay, to make the torment of her own mind go away. If only she’d known the right combination of words or had the correct facts or… Bastila stopped, not wanting to go down that road at that exact moment and run the risk of bursting into tears in public. Again.

She paid the docking fee and walked wearily to her new ship. Well, “new” was perhaps being a little generous. “Second-hand” as well. The scuffed and dented light-multipurpose-vehicle had probably been carrying families and workmen around the galaxy since before the Mandalorians first invaded the Republic. The entrance hatch clanged and squeaked a little as it sealed behind Bastila, making her wince. The ship was sound. She had checked it herself, not taking the dealer’s word at face value. It just didn’t sound like it was.

Sliding her equipment duffle to the floor, she checked her chrono, shucking off her work clothes with practised ease. She was running a little late if she wanted to meet the others on time but she’d be damned if she showed up to a social gathering smelling like work, even if she  _ had  _ spent the whole time in a duct surrounded by electronics rather than down in the muck and the grime. Even if  _ some people  _ called her a priss and teased her for her fastidiousness.  _ We can’t all smell like sex appeal made incarnate when we’re hot and sweaty, now can w--  _ Bastila cut off the thought sharply, grief knifing through her. Maybe she should turn the ship around. She should be by the comm unit in case word came through. What if the detective called or Sera tried to contact her or-- She stopped herself, hooking the baseplate of the shower unit into place with her foot and turning the cold water on full blast, the icy shock freezing all bad thoughts out of her mind. For now, anyway. Soaping up, she turned over to the hot water, rinsing herself clean just as the water tanks sputtered dry. The shower components were stowed back into the wall as she ran a towel over herself. Unfortunately, she hadn’t left enough water to make herself a cup of tea.  _ Bother. _ She’d just have to wait until the water recycler did its thing.

Pottering over to the cockpit area, she checked the navigational computer - still on course and running smoothly - before digging in the narrow closets towards the rear of the ship where her cot was for a suitable outfit. Her hands brushed over a shirt, brighter and more colourful than anything she herself typically wore. It was foolish. When they found Sera she would most likely have plenty of time to pack a bag of essentials before she was allowed to see her again. But it felt wrong, not having any trace of her in Bastila’s day to day life. She fingered the material. It wouldn’t look odd, would it? They were roughly the same size, even if their sense of style was different. She took the shirt and several other items out of the closet and dressed, examining the end result in the tiny mirror on the inside of the closet door. Satisfied, a note of bittersweet comfort in her chest, she settled into the pilot’s seat for the rest of her journey, hand caressing the empty co-pilot’s seat next to her.

~~~

Mission met her at the door to Carth’s apartment on Coruscant. The instant the door opened, the sounds of Canderous baiting Carth into an argument -  _ About doilies? _ \- floated out into the elegant hallway Bastila was standing in. The girl bounced out of the door, then caught herself and arranged her face into what Bastila presumed was her idea of a genteel hostess.

“Ahem.  _ Would _ you come in?” The words were said in a fake posh accent. “Ooh! Fancy booze! Thanks, Bastila,” she said in her normal voice, reaching to take the bottle from Bastila’s hands.

Bastila lifted it out of her reach. “This is for the man of the hour.” (“Aww…”) “Why are you answering the door?”

Carth appeared behind her, hands full of scraps of lacy material. “Yes, why are you answering the door?” He poked Mission in the shoulder. “Go be useful and help Zaalbar in the kitchen. You put that back where you found it, Canderous, or so help me!” he said, voice increasing sharply in volume.

“Faugh! It is unbecoming for a warrior to allow his domicile to be festooned with this...” Canderous plucked contemptuously at a doily carefully arranged along the armrest of a chair, “frilly _ garbage _ .”

“They’re from my mother-in-law. The doilies stay!”

The Mandalorian scoffed loudly. “Where’s your spine, Carth! What kind of a man are you to let someone else dictate what happens in your own house?”

“The kind that likes to stay on good terms with his family members! Bastila,” he said, turning back to her, “sorry for not answering the door in time. I’ve, uh, been trying to wrangle these two since they got here--”

“Hey!”

“Say that to my face, you coward!”

“--And it’s only kinda working.”

Bastila chuckled, heart warming. She’d forgotten how much she’d missed all of them. “It’s no trouble at all. Here.” She held out the wine for him to take. “Congratulations on the promotion.”

He drew her into a hug. “Thank you, Bastila. This means a lot to me.”

“They couldn’t have picked a better man. You deserve it.”

He dropped his voice so only she could hear. “Has there been any news, have you heard anything?”

A lump formed in her throat. “Not yet.”

Carth tightened his arms around her, giving her a brief but comforting squeeze before patting her on the back and letting her go. She surreptitiously wiped at her eyes while he examined the bottle.

“I asked around. The vintage is from when you joined the Navy. I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s more than alright, thank you.” He ran his thumb over the date. “Has it really been that long?” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Fuck.”

Mission playfully punched him in the stomach. “You’re just lucky she didn’t get one for your birth year, geezer.”

“Mission, don’t be silly,” Bastila said with a straight face. “I could  _ never _ hope to afford something so ancient.”

“Alright, you two. Don’t you know it’s impolite to insult the host?” He flapped the doilies threateningly at them. “You two get before I decide that you both need to clean the toilets.”

Canderous rolled his eyes behind Carth and threw a balled-up doily at his head. “Get me a beer, weakling.”

“Get your own damn beer! And get and get those tin can boots of yours off my caf table! You’re scratching the polish!”

Mission tugged on Bastila’s sleeve, pulling her towards the kitchen. Bastila followed, leaving behind the truly fascinating tableau of conflicting masculinity, knowing from experience that Canderous would keep the argument going for hours.

Zaalbar and Juhani were hiding in the kitchen, chatting about sports while Zaalbar arranged some snacks on a platter.

“Hello, Bastila,” Zaalbar wuffled. “How’s the move going?”

“Oh, about the usual,” Bastila said, helping herself to a beverage from the fridge. “We’ve collected more things in the past two years than I think either of us realized and it’s difficult deciding what to keep and what to throw away.”

“Don’t forget we are always happy to help.” He flexed his arms a little. “I’ve got to put these muscles to use someti-- Mission, those are for later. You’ll ruin your dinner.”

“I was just testing them,” she said, her mouth full of salt cracker and cream cheese.

“Where’s Jolee?” Bastila asked.

“He said something about needing to ask a man about a Wookiee,” Juhani replied. “I do not believe he was being completely truthful.”

“Yeah!” Mission said, spraying cracker crumbs everywhere. “If he wanted to see a Wookiee, he could see one right here!” She slapped Zaalbar in the chest.

“Mission, it’s just and express--”

Carth stomped through the kitchen door and shut it behind himself with a huff, making the small space feel rather cramped.

“Come back here and face me, you spineless wimp!”

“I’m hiding from the barbarian in my living room. Got any more of those crackers?”

Mission cheered from her position on top of the kitchen counter while Zaalbar grumbled and passed the platter across.

“No offense,” Bastila said, swiping a cracker as the platter went past, “but why did you invite him in the first place.”

“Unfortunately, I must agree with Bastila. Canderous is… not the most gracious of guests,” Juhani said delicately.

Carth sighed. “I didn’t think he’d show up.” He swatted at Mission’s feet swinging into the doors of the kitchen cupboards. “Get your ass off my counter top. And stop chewing with your mouth open!”

“Hey!” Mission said, doing neither. “ _ We _ ,” she indicated herself and Zaalbar, “are small business owners now. We don’t have to listen to what other people have to say.”

“Mission, please stop chewing with your mouth open. Nobody will take us seriously,” Zaalbar complained.

Bastila smiled at the exchange, then felt a pang run through her. This was all wrong. Everything felt off and out of balance. Sera should be here with them all, egging Mission on and defending Canderous’ right to be an ass. Her fist tightened around her drink. Even the absence of the two droids felt wrong. There was no HK threatening to start a firefight over some imagined, or most likely  _ completely made up _ , slight to his Master, necessitating the removal of the weapon he’d invariably managed to secrete about his person, no T3 scuttling around with people’s drinks on his head, or Mission sat on top of him, actually. No Sera catching her eye from across the room and giving her a wink, holding her hand and squeezing it gently while talking to someone else, slipping her arm around Bastila’s waist and kissing her neck when no one was looking…

Juhani nudged her gently, interrupting her train of thought.

“Are you alright?” she said, softly enough so as not to be heard by the others.

Bastila flushed, embarrassed to be caught moping. “Oh, uh, yes. Yes, of course! I was just…” She stopped, uncertain how to continue. “I was just thinking,” she finished lamely.

“I presume you have not heard anything more about where Sera might be?”

“No,” Bastila said, her heart aching. It still stung to think about. “Why? Have you heard anything? Anything at all?”

“Unfortunately, not. Although, the hyperspace routes of the Outer Rim seem to have gained a reputation as being dangerous to travellers. Moreso than a few years ago.” Juhani frowned. “Are you alright by yourself all the way out there? You would not rather stay with one of us for a little while?”

“I appreciate the offer but all of our clients and work is in the Outer Rim. And all of this is only temporary. Once… once Sera comes back home--”

A minor commotion in the living room spared her from having to continue.

“Hey, Carth!” It was Jolee. “Look at what I found out in the… What the… Where has everyone gotten to?”

“Dad? I brought the ice!”

“Jolee, this is perfect.”

“Oh, hello, Canderous. How’s the mercenary business going? And where is everyone else?” Jolee chuckled. “Did you finally snap and stuff all their bodies down the ‘fresher in pieces?”

“Not yet, old man.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Onasi! We’ve got your son! You better come out if you know what’s good for you!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Bastila huffed in annoyance. “You’re all cowards.” She grabbed a beer from the fridge and strode out of the kitchen.

Jolee was standing slouched by the entrance, pretending to look like a regular senior citizen rather than a wily old Jedi. Dustil was next to him, bag of ice next to him on the floor, looking unnervingly more like a freshly-shaven version of his father every day. Canderous was still lounging on the couch with his boots on Carth’s precious caf table.

Bastila chucked the can of beer at his head. “Here. Now behave!”

He caught it before it could hit him. Unfortunately. “Ha! I should have known you would have been the first one to break.” He opened the beer and took a sip. “You always were a grumpy little bitch when Sera wasn’t giving you a good fu--”

His words were cut off when the rest of his beer was pushed out of the can at high speed into his face. Bastila smiled placidly as he coughed and spluttered, beer pouring down his face and neck and into the undershirt he wore beneath his armour.

“Why you--!”

“Now, now, Canderous,” she purred, “there’s no need to lose your temper.”

Jolee roared with laughter, slapping Bastila on the back vigorously, knocking the wind out of her. “You should know better than to cross someone who knows how to fight back!” He continued to laugh, thumping her back all the while.

“You all are fucking weird,” Dustil muttered as he walked past them into the kitchen. “Dad! You in here?”

~~~

Mission was curled up on Zaalbar’s lap, the tiny snores emanating from her chest overwhelmed by the much more thunderous noises coming from her furry friend’s mouth, hanging open in slumber. She’d protested loudly when Carth had adamantly refused to allow her and Zaalbar to fly home this late in the evening and proceeded to nod off shortly thereafter. Juhani was cleaning up in the kitchen, despite Cath’s insistence that he would do it himself later, most likely needing a moment on her own to mentally recharge after being around so many people for an extended amount of time but not wanting to leave them all just yet. Dustil had disappeared hours ago, citing a need to get up early for work but Bastila suspected that he was meeting friends for drinks somewhere. Carth, Jolee and Canderous were sitting at the dining room table, smoking some noxious cigars that Jolee had “procured”, wink wink (his words), while they gambled, playing what appeared to be a very serious and manly game.

They’d all toasted Carth’s promotion shortly after Dustil and Jolee arrived, after the obligatory fuss and greetings and catching up, then repeating all of the above when half of the group hadn’t heard the other half of the group because they’d been too busy greeting and catching up in amongst themselves. Or arguing over the proper place to throw empty cans and not to “drip beer all over my carpet, dammit!” in one particular case. Juhani and Mission had made sure that everyone had a drink in hand (more fuss and bother when Dustil and Jolee had become engrossed in a conversation about infiltration techniques) and they had all (finally) stood in a rough circle and raised a glass to Rear Admiral Onasi.

Bastila had snorted at that, once for herself and again on Sera’s behalf. Carth had been very patient with their ribbing, only drawing the line when Jolee and Canderous started slapping him on the behind while Zaalbar pointed and laughed. Things had settled down to their usual, rowdy standard after that. It had felt good, chatting and laughing, talking to other adults like normal, and the ache of Sera’s absence had only hit her a few times during the evening. But it had been fine. There’d been people around her to pull her out of her gloom and keep her distracted for long enough for the moment to pass.

Mission and Zaalbar had both approached her separately, asking if she’d heard any news and if there was anything they could do to help. Even Canderous had… Well, Canderous had told her that _of course_ Sera was still missing if only the half-blind idiots of the Republic Security Forces were looking for her, what did she _expect?_ _They_ couldn’t tell their arse from their elbow, et cetera, et cetera. A _real_ warrior would have found her by now. She had told him (very politely) to get to it then.

And now it was getting late and there were things she needed to do tomorrow that required her to be at least partially awake. She got to her feet, being careful not to wake the two fast asleep next to her, and said goodbye to the rest of the group.

“Hold up there, my dear,” Jolee said around the cigar in his mouth. He rose from the table with much grunting and groaning. “I’ll walk you back to your ship.”

“Oh, no, Jolee, there’s no need of that. It’s not that far at all.”

“Don’t be silly. My old bones need a stretch before I become ossified to that chair.”

Carth placed his cards face down on the table. “You want us to wait until you get back?”

“No need.” Jolee jostled Mission awake and guided the half-asleep girl to his chair. “There!” he said, placing the cigar in her mouth. “A perfect copy! Nobody will be able to tell the difference!”

Mission sleepily spat the cigar out. “Ick.”

“That’s cheating, old man,” Canderous growled.

“Yeah, what are you trying to do to us?” Carth chimed in. “Take us for everything we have?”

“You big babies frightened of a little girl. Look!” He gestured towards Mission, whose eyes were drifting shut. “She’s barely awake! You’ll be fine. Now, my dear,” he said to Bastila, “shall we depart?”

He retrieved her robe and guided her to the front door, closing it behind them just in time to hear Carth and Canderous’ cries of dismay as Mission took her turn. He looked at her with a mischievous twinkle in his eye and burst out laughing.

Bastila arched an eyebrow at him. “They won’t be happy with you once you get back.”

“Pah! Losing a few hundred or so credits won’t hurt either of them. Besides,’ he said chuckling, “maybe they’ll even manage to sharpen their game a little. But I’m more worried about you, my dear.”

“About me? Why, why would you be worried about me?” she said, even though of course she knew why.

Jolee looked at her with pity in his eyes. “I know what it’s like to grieve someone who is still alive, Bastila.”

“This is  _ not _ the same!” she said, stabbing a finger in his direction. “Sera isn’t… She hasn’t… She hasn’t left me or fallen to the Dark Side or some other nonsense. She is  _ going  _ to come back home to me, Jolee. That is what is going to happen!”

“But you don’t know that.” He held up a placating hand, forestalling the tirade she could feel building within her. “I hope with every fibre of my being that Sera comes home safe and sound tomorrow. But she may not and not for lack of trying on her part. What are you going to do then? At what point do you decide to let her go and continue on with your life?”

“How can you even ask me that? Do you have any idea what she means to me? How could I ever “just let her go” as if she were, as if she were  _ nothing _ ? As if she were--”

Jolee touched her shoulder gently. “I’m not trying to hurt you or get you worked up. And I don’t want you to drop your relationship with Sera or pretend like it never happened. All I want you to consider is your own well being. Because you are here and she is not. And I don’t want you to put your life on hold if weeks and months of waiting turn into decades. Also…” He sighed, then grumbled and made a face. “Don’t forget that you can always, I guess, if you feel like it or have to, for financial reasons or if you’re in a pickle…” He sighed again. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. You can always come back to the Order if you want to. So you don’t have to struggle on your own in that tiny ship if you don’t want to.”

Bastila gave a small smile, touched by his concern even as her heart still ached from his previous words. “That’s very kind of you, Jolee. However, I think I can safely say that I will  _ never _ return to the Jedi Order, even if Sera were never to return.”

“Oh, thank goodness! At least one of us should remain free.” He shook himself off vigorously. “Ugh, I feel dirty even bringing it up. I  _ really _ should run away again…”

They arrived at her boxy ship, looking dowdy and forlorn in the visitor’s docking bay.

“It’s not exactly the Ebon Hawk, is it?” Jolee muttered.

“No,” Bastila said, running her hand over the fading paint on the hull. “But it’s big enough for two and that’s all that counts.”

~~ ~

The interior of their apartment was dark and silent as usual. The message light on the comm unit was blinking and Bastila had to endure the now-familiar sensation of false hope and cold reality simultaneously lifting and crashing her spirits into the ground. A new message probably meant nothing. Marketers and insurance salesdroids still had their contact information and any urgent messages should have been redirected to Mrs Bima while Bastila was out anyway.

She stepped over the boxes in the entranceway ready to be taken to storage, nudging some of them aside with her foot as she made her way to the comm. There were envelopes and bits of flimsi piled on the kitchen counter but she ignored them for now. Most of them were probably bills anyway and she was too tired from the long trip home to do anything but check through her voice messages.

As expected, there was nothing of interest. There was an offer from an on-station cleaning firm to demonstrate their weekly service, free of charge. A call from a company that offered facial tentacle enhancements that were All-Natural™ and Long-Lasting™ (Bastila didn’t know how she and Sera had been put on their mailing list). Multiple messages, varying in appropriateness, from the incredibly persistent Officer Daro. It was just lucky that so far he seemed too lazy to actually make the trip all the way across the sector to pester her in person. Lucky for him. And finally, there was a message from Detective Brimarch, the individual that had been assigned to Sera’s case, replying to the message that Bastila had left saying that, no, there hadn’t been anymore new information, please be patient, Ms Shan, these things take time, we will call you if there are any new developments. In other words, push off and stop bothering us.

Bastila sighed and prepared for bed. There was nothing she could do about it and she was too exhausted at the moment even if there were. She recorded the day’s events in her father’s holocron, had a bit of a cry, then washed her face and crawled into the too-large bed, Sera’s half stretching out vast and cold next to her.

That night she dreamed of Sera, a not unusual occurrence in the time since she’d walked out the door, promising to be back soon. She woke, her heart pounding, the ghost of Sera’s lips and fingertips still on her skin. For a moment, it was almost as though she were right there, that all Bastila had to do was reach out and grasp hold of her. But she wasn’t, of course. Bastila closed her eyes, trying to hold onto the feeling of her lover’s presence for just a little while longer.

~~~

Life continued. Moving day came. She continued to work odd jobs, nothing that would take her too far from home, while packing up their belongings and transferring most of it to a cheap, but hopefully reliable, storage facility in the region. The rest of her time was consumed with the arduous duty of contacting all relevant persons, clients and suppliers, as well as everyone involved in investigating Sera’s disappearance, and advising them that she could no longer be contacted via the comm unit in their little apartment and would have to use her ship’s comm frequency instead.

Their friends kept in contact, reaching out occasionally to make sure she was okay. Even Beqi, her bunkmate from those far-off days when she was training under the Jedi, called her saying that she’d heard what had happened (from little Miss “I think I’m amazing” Ran Staulkie most likely) and offered her condolences.

The apartment slowly transformed, the warmth and cosiness of the life she and Sera were building together leeching away as each mark of their shared presence, every trinket, every bit of furniture and clothing, was removed, leaving behind a practical but sterile space. Mission, Juhani and Zaalbar all dropped by to help her with the last lot of boxes to be moved and furniture to be dismantled and packed away while Mrs Bima provided caf and snacks. Not that there was much left to move, most of her clothes and daily items already having made the transition into their new resting spots in her ship. It wasn’t terrible. Mission set her datapad to play her favourite music at a volume that Bastila wouldn’t have dared personally while they worked and even managed to coax them all into singing along (badly) as they cleaned the apartment top to bottom and returned it to a pristine state, ready for its next occupant.

It was later now. They had just finished packing away all their cleaning supplies and all that was left for Bastila to do was lock up and return her keycard to station management. Mrs Bima stood with her, looking around the empty room.

“It’s quite eery, isn’t it, dear?”

“Yes,” Bastila said. “It isn’t… this isn’t quite the way I pictured leaving here.” It had been the last promise she’d made to her mother before she died; that she wouldn’t spend her life floating rootlessly around the galaxy as her parents had. And yet here she was, barely more than a year since she and Sera had stood here together the day they moved in. They hadn’t even bothered to unpack that day, anointing the living room with their sweat and love until they were pleasantly sore all over and aglow with the hope and promise of everything the future might hold. “I thought we would only leave if we wanted to start a family,” she muttered quietly.

“Well, I am going to miss you,” the older woman said. “It was so nice having a young couple next door rather than some rabble, coming and going at an ungodly hour, making an awful racket. I only hope we don’t get anyone too odd moving in.”

Bastila smiled, knowing that they hadn’t always been particularly quiet neighbours. “I’m certain you’ll get along just fine with whoever moves in.”

Bastila dropped the keycard off at the office on their floor and they all went down to a restaurant in one of the lower sectors of the station after, one that she and Sera hadn’t been to yet. The others kept the conversation going, keeping things light and cheerful long into the night. Bastila knew that they were trying to keep her distracted from the slow dissolution of her life and was eminently grateful. Tired of all the stress and the sorrow, she let herself forget her troubles, at least for now, and enjoy the evening and the company of her friends.

But they couldn’t stay with her indefinitely and soon they were gone, each returning to their own lives, leaving Bastila all alone. She trudged down to the visitor’s dock where they’d moved her ship earlier, paid the fee and left the station. She was homeless once more.

~~~

“No, I’m  _ not _ going to call you back. You’ve put me off for  _ weeks  _ and I want to know what progress you’ve made in finding my partner.”

There was a sigh over the comm and Bastila didn’t need the Force to be able to feel the detective rolling their eyes on the other end. “Ms Shan, these things take time. You can’t just--”

“That is the only thing you have told me ever since you took my initial statement. Have you followed up on the Perseian pilgrims that were found near Yaga Minor? Or any of the other ships that were supposedly in the same train as the Ebon Hawk? Or what about looking into where she allegedly bought flowers from because, I promise you, there isn’t any place by Dua Sovv’s yard where she could have picked them by hand.” Bastila took a breath. “Have you even started looking for her?”

Detective Brimarch was silent for just long enough to turn Bastila’s insides to ice. “Ms Shan, have you considered that your partner might not  _ want _ to be found?”

Bastila felt the ice in her stomach turn into a ball of fiery anger. “Are you completely mental? There has been absolutely no evidence to suggest anything of the sort and an overwhelming amount pointing to the fact that she was involved in a _ well-organised hijacking _ . One of possibly  _ several  _ that have occurred in the region, if all the people I have talked to are to be believed.”

“Please stop trying to interfere with our work, Ms Shan. These kinds of things are best left to the professionals and you’re not helping your partner any by going around asking your own questions.”

“I see. I suppose I am to sit in my ship like a penitent little girl while the luminaries of Cassander P.D. divine the location of all these missing persons from the depths of their caf cups and the entrails of their doughnuts?”

“There’s no need to be rude, Ms Shan. You wouldn’t want us to be distracted by your insults and overlook a crucial piece of evidence that might lead to the safe return of your partner.”

“Is that a threat, Detective?”

“Not at all, ma’am. Hope you have a pleasant day.”

The detective ended the call without any further ado, leaving Bastila glaring impotently at the ship’s comm unit. She had been in the middle of making herself another lonely dinner after a long day of unblocking every single toilet in an office block (the builder had used too small waste pipes when the complex had been constructed, possibly on the developer’s instructions to reduce costs) when she had given into temptation and called up Detective Brimarch’s comm frequency. It was foolish. She hadn’t really thought that there might be any more new information, not after so long without any contact from the good detective, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. She was so lonely and life was so dull without Sera there that chivvying up Detective Brimarch had become something of a hobby. But now she was fuming.  _ How dare they… How  _ dare _ they! I put my faith in their ability and willingness to do their bloody job and care about my beloved’s whereabouts and they couldn’t be bothered! I have half a mind to-- _

A hint of carbon hit her nose and she swore under her breath, quickly removing her now burnt stew from the heating coil. “Extra crispy” Sera would call it. “Adds depth to the flavour.”

“Bollocks,” she muttered, taking a cautious taste. She made a face. “She talks a load of complete nonsense sometimes.”

Bastila stared into the singed depths of her meal as a resolution formed in her mind. If Detective Brimarch wouldn’t look for Sera, she would just have to find someone who would.

~~~

It took longer than she liked to reach Coruscant. Constrained by the limits of her bank account, she had to plan her route out carefully, working her way towards the Galactic Core and building up enough of a cushion to be able to afford to bother various officials and politicians for several days without having to dip into their savings. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have too many bribes to pay before she got someone to initiate a search for her beloved.

She started at the offices of the Planetary Senator for Garqi, not thinking that it would achieve much (a lifelong politician, the man had a reputation for doing the bare minimum to stay in office) but it was best to follow standard procedure if only to forestall others telling her to go there rather than helping her. As expected, she got condolences, a charming smile and a handshake, a heartfelt plea to vote for him in the next election (she and Sera supported the opposition candidate) and nothing else.

Next, she went to the Sectoral Senator for all of Cassander, hoping that she could convince them to reprimand and shame their Police Department into action. Unfortunately, Senator Lowysk was off-planet and would only return a few days later for some Senate hearings. Disappointed but determined not to be put off, Bastila made a note of when they would be back, hoping that their meeting falling on that particular day was an auspicious omen, and moved onto her next target.

She went to the Republic Security Forces. They said that it wasn’t their jurisdiction. She went to the Corps of Rangers. They said they had better things to do. Like investigate ration fraud apparently. She went to the Republic Offices of Criminal Investigations. They said there wasn’t enough evidence of wrongdoing or negligence. She went  _ back _ to the Republic Security Forces and got kicked out of the building for banging her fist on an official’s desk. She went to the Judicial Department and lost her temper at a receptionist when she was informed that office hours were over and the building was now closed to the public.

Angered, she spent a restless and frustrated night on her ship, heading straight back to the Judicial Department at first light, apologising to the receptionist at the front desk. And spent the entire day trudging around the Judicial Arcology in search of permit number A38 that would allow her to lodge her request, only to be told at the end of it all that searching for missing persons was not within the jurisdiction of the Judicial Department and that she would have to file a missing person’s report with the Cassander Police Department. Managing to hold her temper (barely), she explained that she  _ had _ already done that, _ months ago _ , and that the detective on the case was doing bugger all to find her partner. She was told, with a disinterested look, that these things take time, Ms Shan. You can’t rush these things, Ms Shan. Are you  _ certain _ that you don’t know anything about your partner’s disappearance, Ms Shan? Bristling at the implication but holding her tongue, Bastila thanked them for their time and went in search of someone who would actually help her.

She visited the Transportation Department, hoping they would care about people being lost on their spacelanes. She visited the Department of Trade and Industry, hoping the same thing. She stood in queues. She sat in uncomfortable chairs. She spent hours on her feet, crisscrossing office complexes and riding in elevators until she was tired and aching. She started getting looks from passersby as news of her stubborn persistence and willingness to bother just about anyone spread around the district. Then she did it all again the next day, determined to find someone,  _ anyone _ , who would listen to her pleas.

“Padawan. I did not expect to see you here.”

Bastila was stumbling blindly down the wide stairway leading away from the Senate Building, clutching at the handrail for support when the voice stopped her. She looked up in surprise at the small group heading in the opposite direction up the stairs and found herself staring into the placid eyes of Jedi Master Zhar Lestin.

“Hello, Master,” she said stupidly, too numb and emotionally drained from arguing with people all day to know what to say or think.

“Na’vena, would you mind running on ahead and telling Senator Nugua that I will be with him shortly,” he said to the young Padawan at his side.

“Not a problem, Master. It was good to see you around again, Bastila,” the teenager said sunnily before running off, green headtails bouncing behind her.

“Isn’t that Master Saldo’s Padawan?” She’d grown quite a bit since the last time Bastila had seen her.

“I am merely borrowing her for a time while Master Saldo takes care of business on the Outer Rim. And what of you, Padawan?” he said with a kind smile. “Are you here for business or for pleasure?”

Bastila frowned. “Neither. I’ve just returned from…” She stopped, not wanting to think about the meeting she’d just had. “I’m trying to convince people to do their bloody jobs and find Sera for me.”

“Ah, yes. Master Bindo and Knight Juhani told us about Padawan Khan’s disappearance. A sad state of affairs, Padawan.”

Bastila could feel her eye twitching, her temper frayed from the day’s events. “Neither I nor Sera are part of the Jedi Order anymore,  _ sir _ ,” she said with a little more than a touch of heat in her voice. “And I would hardly call the complete and utter disregard for a person’s safety and wellbeing a “sad state of affairs”.”

“Forgive me, Padaw-- Bastila. It seems old habits die hard. I meant no offence.”

“Will you do it?” Bastila said, not wanting to owe the Jedi Order  _ anything _ but Sera was more important than her pride or her anger at the people who raised her, had raised both of them. And she was running out of options. “Will you find Sera and bring her back to me?”

She knew his answer before he opened his mouth, the sad, pitying look in his eyes a familiar sight over the past few days. “I’m sorry--”

“It’s fine.”

“--Our numbers are so few these days and there are more important--”

“I said it’s fine!” Bastila said, sick with anger and disappointment and furious with herself for letting her get her hopes up. “I don’t know why I even bothered asking. You clearly knew she was missing all this time and yet haven’t done a thing to get her back!”

“I wish things were different, child, but we simply cannot afford to waste resources on a single individual when our efforts could be better spent elsewhere.”

“Then what good are you? What good are  _ any of you _ ,” Bastila demanded, flinging a hand out angrily to indicate the entire Senate District, “when none of you,  _ none of you _ , are willing to even  _ pretend _ to lift a finger when one of the citizens under  _ your _ so-called protection goes missing? If you can’t even be bothered to care about a single person, what is the point of keeping  _ any of you _ around?” A sob escaped her and she clapped a hand over her mouth, biting into the flesh of her palm to distract herself from her grief.  _ I am  _ not _ going to cry in front of a Jedi ever again! _

Zhar stared at her in shock. There was a flicker of doubt in his eyes but he made no move of any kind. Bastila’s shoulders slumped, suddenly feeling utterly exhausted.

“Thank you for your time, Master Jedi.”

She walked away, not giving him a chance to respond, leaving the Jedi behind for the second time in her life. She wandered aimlessly through the streets of the district, at a loss for where to go next. She knew that she should head back to her ship, plan her next move, but she couldn’t bear dealing with the message from Mission or Juhani asking how things had gone that would inevitably be waiting for her. Or even a quick visit from one of her friends that were currently on the planet. Bastila loved them all dearly (well, maybe not Canderous) and she knew that they were only doing their best to look after her but she just couldn’t take it at the moment. So she wandered, not wanting to be found. Picking a diner at random, she walked in and took a seat, closing her tired and stinging eyes.

“ _ It isn’t that I expect them to, to just drop everything and find my partner for me but I expected  _ something, _ a little more than just “no thank you”. _ ”

Bastila flicked an eye open and winced. The viewscreen was playing the clip from her interview with the news crew outside the Senate Building and to her chagrin it was in fact painfully obvious that she had been on the verge of tears ever since her complete failure of a meeting with Senator Lowysk. She sank further down into her seat, face reddening, as the clip continued to play in its full, embarrassing entirety. Eventually, the clip ended and they returned to the studio where the talking heads proceeded to dissect her almost-meltdown for the whole galaxy to see. (In fact, there were several other interviews in the rotation that were all touched on equally and the news program was a local affair that was only broadcast to the Senate District anyway but it didn’t  _ feel _ that way in the moment.) The waitress came to take her order and Bastila had to sit up straight like an adult again, making a quick mental calculation of her finances before ordering her meal.

She sat while she waited for her caf, contemplating what the hell she was going to do next. Detective Brimarch was surely doing absolutely nothing. None of the other law enforcement agencies seemed to be interested at all. And Senator Lowysk… The hoped-for meeting had been a disaster. Not that the Senator was particularly rude or dismissive but they, like so many others, seemed to have come to the conclusion that Sera was dead. And if she was dead, there was no point in wasting time looking for her. It was absolutely crushing, pouring her heart out, pleading her case with every fibre of her being only to be met with disbelief and disinterest. Even the Jedi Order, who should be bloody well aware that Bastila would know whether Sera was dead or not, couldn’t spare the effort to even pay lip service to the idea of searching for Sera.  _ You would think that at least they would be concerned at “Sera Khan” going missing. _ But that was the rub, wasn’t it? “Sera Khan” wasn’t a great military general or dangerous menace to the Republic because Sera wasn’t interested in being any of those things. And, therefore, the Republic and the Jedi didn’t have much interest in her.

Her meal arrived. The caf was bitter but it was hot and sweet, just what she needed after a long day on her feet. The double bean burger looked juicy and tender, slathered in sauce and a multitude of vegetables just the way Sera liked it.

“Happy birthday, love,” she said quietly before taking a large bite. Juice ran down her chin, flavour bursting in her mouth. Sera would have loved it. This wasn’t the way she had pictured spending Sera’s thirtieth,  _ at all _ , the few plans she had made having fallen through for obvious reasons. But if by some miracle Sera  _ had _ managed to be there it would have been perfect. It would have been everything she could have asked for.

“ _ I came here today because my partner went missing more than two months ago now and the, the police department in charge of looking, in charge of her case are doing absolutely nothing to find her and that just isn’t, it’s completely unacceptable. _ ”

Bastila sighed. Clearly there was no other news today because that  _ bloody interview clip _ kept looping back around.  _ Maybe somebody will blow something up and they’ll be able to natter on endlessly about that instead. _

“That’s what you get for living on the Outer Rim.”

The voice came from the booth next to her’s. Two young Coruscanti, fresh out of their day’s labour by the looks of it, were sitting enjoying the spectacle of the destruction of Bastila’s life over caf and waffles.

“Where did she say she was from again?”

“Hmm, Cassander, I think.”

“I got a cousin out there. Nice weather.”

Bastila glared at the both of them, sitting all companionably close and carefree. Then she huffed and pulled her attention away. There was no point in paying them any mind. Not when she still had so many other things to think about. Maybe she should hire a private investigator. Some of the more unusual people that she’d visited seeking help, the guilds and the unions, had been a bit flaky, a bit too eager to utilise Sera’s disappearance for their own goals but maybe the promise of money would provide adequate motivation. Money that she didn’t have.

“Bugger,” she muttered, popping another slice of perfectly fried tuber into her mouth.

There also was no guarantee that a professional wouldn’t string her along indefinitely, draining her finances until she had nothing left. And even if pride in their own reputation kept them from doing so, she wasn’t certain she would know who the best investigator to hire would be in the first place. Jolee or Canderous might be able to point her in the right direction but someone good would presumably be someone expensive. So, even if she were somehow able to scrape together the necessary funds and had reason to believe that whoever she hired was trustworthy, she still might only be able to afford someone as skilled as herself.

“I might as well do it myself then,” she said, then she clicked her tongue. “I’m turning into Sera, talking to myself all the time!”  _ She’s not even here and she’s  _ still _ a bad influence! _

But where to start? She could probably get some more information out of the elderly pilgrim that had reported the hijacking to the authorities, although she only knew about that because she had happened to have spotted the report about their rescue when she had made the trip to Cassander to bang her fist on Brimarch’s desk and had to use what Sera lovingly called “her magnetic personality” to browbeat the information out of the good detective. And she wasn’t completely certain of the pilgrim’s whereabouts, only where he had been heading to and where he’d been found.

“ _ And I know for a fact that she is not the only person who has gone missing, which means that they are other people out there, other families that have been torn apart because of the negligence and the lack of care on the part of the Republic Security Forces and the entire judiciary. _ ”

“Oh,  _ her _ .”

Bastila’s ears pricked up. The new voice, knowing and derisive, came from somewhere only a little ways away.

“Hmm? Friend of yours?”

“Ha! She’s been bothering most of the Judicial Arcology for the past couple days. Got a real bee in her bonnet about this missing girlfriend of hers.”

Curiosity getting the better of her, Bastila peeped over the top of the high-backed seats of the booth. Sure enough, two booths down from where she and the cheerful waffle-eaters were sitting were a Duros and a Bothan in the same kind of no-nonsense but inexpensive suits that seemed to be favoured by the members of the Republic Offices of Criminal Investigations.

“I don’t know, man.” This was from the Duros. “I would be pretty pissed if Yuri went missing and no one bothered to look for him.”

“Nah, this chick’s long gone. That far out they sell your ship off and then sell you to whoever’s paying. Chick’s probably being worked to death on a construction site somewhere or stuck cleaning some rich asshole’s toilets.”

“Again: pretty fucking pissed.”

The Bothan shrugged and took another bite of his steak. “Not really much we can do unless the Senate finally grows a pair and lets us use the kind of force that’s necessary to wipe these motherfuckers from the face of the Galaxy.”

“Hey, wasn’t Ken down in Audits working on something to crack down on sentient trafficking by getting some of these guys on tax irregularities?”

“Argh! No!” The Bothan raised his knife and his fork over his head in frustration and brought them crashing down on the table. “That’s a pussy’s way of solving problems!”

The rest of his rant faded to a dull buzz, Bastila’s mind too focused on what she’d just heard. Finishing her burger, she pulled the slice of chocolate cake that she’d chosen for her dessert towards her. She ate mechanically, barely even tasting the rich, moist cake with decadent ganache and the generous scoops of ice cream piled next to it, her mind and stomach churning with what to do.

~~~

_ This is stupid. _

Bastila pulled the service cap lower on her head as she walked past yet another office worker, clutching the handle of her cart of cleaning supplies tighter and tighter as though it could protect her from danger. It was getting late and the building was slowly emptying of workers and officials but there were always a few who stayed late, working themselves into an early grave for no good reason. That was how it had been every office complex she and Sera had ever worked in, whether for maintenance or janitorial work, and Bastila saw no reason for it to be any different in a government office.

She tugged uselessly at the cap again and then forced herself to keep her hands down and relaxed on the cart, aware that she looked like a nervous, jumpy hoodlum up to no good.  _ This is stupid and dangerous and I should just complete the job and find another way.  _ Which she could do, of course. She had taken the temp job at the Republic Tax Collection Agency Building for legitimate reasons and by legitimate means; she needed the money and she had experience cleaning large office buildings. Not much experience, to be sure. And their kind of cleaning usually involved a flamethrower and copious amounts of agricultural waste but that didn’t matter. She could finish the job right now, take her cart down to maintenance, collect her pay and walk away. It was that simple.

She kept going, her stomach churning. Her hands itched to check the map of the building that she’d picked up at the reception desk, make certain that she was heading in the right direction but she knew that doing so would only attract attention to herself. Keeping her gait steady and careful, not too fast to indicate a specific need and not too slow to suggest loitering, she moved from office to office, emptying out wastebaskets and cleaning any minor spills or stains that had been left behind by the day’s activities. She rehearsed in her head what she would do if someone queried her presence. If it was another cleaner, one that was supposed to be there, she would say that she had misunderstood her instructions, return to the lower floors and not return again. If it was someone who recognised her from the news clip or her rampage through the Judicial Arcology… Well, she would just have to play the sad, pathetic crank, too poor to hire a private investigator and forced to take on menial work to pay off her bills. It was depressingly close to the truth.

Enduring a nerve-wracking ride in an elevator with a pair of secretaries and a cleaning droid ironically meant for the upper floors, she arrived at the 20th Floor, Sector F, where the Auditing department was housed. An open area where the bulk of the department sat and worked stretched out in front of the elevator, desks arranged in neat rows ending at a wall lined with glow panels creating an artificial bank of windows for the space. No prime space on the outer skin of the building for  _ this _ department. To her far left a corridor lead away from the open space, presumably to the boardroom and smaller offices for the auditors. She stood stock still for a moment. The floor was quiet. To her ear there was no hint of any late workers or after-hours shenanigans behind locked doors. The scent of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air, as well as the ghost of the curried egg sandwich that somebody had had for lunch. That was good. It meant that this floor hadn’t been cleaned yet. At least, Bastila hoped that was a good thing.

She moved forward, resisting the urge to rush directly towards her intended destination for fear of appearing suspicious on the security cameras. It was agonising. Her goal was  _ right there _ , not more than a dozen metres away and yet she  _ had _ to keep up the charade if she didn’t want to have a very awkward conversation with a security guard later in the evening. Sweat poured down her face, her hands shaking as she emptied the ashtrays into her waste receptacle, making them clatter noisily as she replaced them on the desks. She dutifully wiped down caf stains, swept up crumbs and set chairs neatly on top of desks ready for the cleaning droid to vacuum the carpet, making her painstaking way across through the sea of desks towards the corridor. Reaching the far end, she cycled the room’s atmosphere to remove the noxious odours, pulled protective gloves over her hands and stepped into the corridor.

_ Ken, Ken, which one belongs to Ken?  _ She got to the end of the corridor, finding no “Ken” anywhere. Heart in her mouth and every foul word she had ever heard Sera utter on her tongue, she stalked back down the corridor, scrutinizing each door. It was three doors up from the entrance into the corridor, clear as day on the nameplate: Ken Freshwater. She had missed it in her haste. Cursing her own stupidity, she tried the door. It was locked.

“Fuck!”

Bastila clapped a hand over her mouth. The word had popped out involuntarily, bouncing loudly off the still office walls, shocking in its suddenness. She stood frozen, then relaxed. Nobody up here could hear her, she could be as loud as she wanted, do whatever she pleased, barring major construction work. Getting down on her knees, she examined the lock on the door. She wasn’t particularly an expert by any means but it seemed a fairly standard lock to her. She had seen Mission breeze past locks such as these many a time, even with doors she  _ had _ full access to. Bastila ran a gloved hand over the lock. She  _ thought _ she knew how to do this. Rifling in her pocket, she retrieved a pazaak card from the deck she’d bought down at the docks, inserted it into the crack between the door and the jamb… and dropped the card. Swearing, she snatched it up off the floor, shook her hands out and pulled the gloves more tightly onto her hands, wriggling her fingers to settle the ungainly material more neatly against her skin. She took a breath and tried again, working the card back and forth while she applied gentle pressure against the door, getting back up on her feet to gain better leverage. Right as she was about to simply blow the door open with the Force and hang the consequences, the latch clicked out of the locking mechanism and the door swung open.

Bastila caught herself before she pitched face forward into the dark room. She fumbled at the wall for the light switch and gazed around the room. It was a fairly mundane office, shelves and filing cabinets in one corner and a desk covered in files and personal items, decorative caf mugs and holo frames with a workstation in the centre.  _ Now, where to start? _ She moved to the desk, realizing just as she touched the power button that she had absolutely no contingency plan if she couldn’t get into the system. Luckily, the display powered directly onto the main desktop, the overall security of the building itself apparently having been enough to put the workstation’s main user at ease. She connected her datapad and browsed through the system’s files, looking for anything, absolutely anything, that might be related to sentient trafficking or the illegal selling of stolen starships. And there it was. An entire folder containing everything Ken Freshwater had collected on the irregular movement of large sums of money on the Outer Rim along with what looked like a half-finished report on his findings. Bastila could have cried. She copied the whole thing across, including several folders of raw data pertaining to the region, just in case his collection wasn’t enough.

And now she had to get out of here. She disconnected her datapad and powered off the workstation, looking around to see if there was anything that she’d disturbed that would alert anyone to her intrusion. Satisfied that the room looked as it did as when she broke in, she switched the lights off and pulled the door shut behind her, testing to make sure it auto-locked as she closed it. She stowed her datapad safely in her bag, removed the awkward gloves and returned them to the cleaning cart, trundling it out into the open office area as she did so. And nearly vomited on the spot as a security guard exited the elevator and made their way over to her.

“Just finishing up?” they asked, their posture friendly and relaxed.

_ Don’t run. Just keep walking as you are, nice and steady. _ “Uh, yes. Just about.”

“Alright. Have a good evening.” They were walking past her, going to check the office doors.

“Thank you. You too.” Had she remembered to have one of Sera’s tawdry novels open on her datapad, one of the really saccharine ones in case anyone wanted to check it?  _ Dammit, I can’t remember! _

Bastila kept walking at her regular pace, projecting a calmness she didn’t feel, as she listened to the guard rattling each door handle in turn, waiting for them to grow suspicious and call her back. She reached the elevator before they did so, if indeed they were going to at all, and stabbed the button for the maintenance floor with more force than was strictly necessary. The elevator doors slid blissfully shut and she collapsed against the elevator wall, light-headed from panic.

The elevator rattled around her as it shot down through the building. She took a deep breath, slowing her racing heart.  _ Nearly there… _ She enjoyed a peaceful ride down, the elevator only stopping once for a middle-aged woman with dark circles under her eyes and a mass of documents held haphazardly under three of her arms who swore profusely at the datapad she was reading and told Bastila to go on ahead. Shaking off the alarm from that minor perturbation, Bastila exited the elevator when she reached her destination, scanning the ID tag clipped to her uniform at the maintenance terminal. She returned the cart to the cleaner’s store, removing her personal effects before scanning the cart’s own tag and logging its return. There was still time for security to call her over for a few questions. Maybe the guard from before had called down to the security office and they were waiting for her at the exit. Shrugging her shoulders to try to relieve the sensation of being watched at every step, she changed out of the uniform that had been issued to her, keeping a beady eye on her bag with its precious cargo.

Lead weighed down her steps as she approached the maintenance desk. Was that guard leaning against the desk chatting up the maintenance officer there for her? She eyed the exit door. Just how fast could she run if she needed to? Heart hammering in her chest, she presented her ID tag to the maintenance officer.

“Six-thirty okay?” The guard didn’t even bother to look at her.

“Hmm,” the officer said, scanning her ID into the system. “I’ll have to check my schedule first.”

Bastila jumped when her datapad beeped loudly, the confirmation of the payment for the night’s work coming through quickly on Coruscant’s communications network.

The guard gave her a dirty look.

The maintenance officer smiled kindly. “You should be good to go. Thanks for your time!”

Bastila took her ID back with a shaky hand. “Th-thank you. You too!”

She beat a hasty retreat, not running exactly but not slowing down either, not until she was far from the building, lost in the sea of sentients milling the streets of Coruscant. Finally letting herself relax, she felt a tear trickling down her cheek. She’d done it. There was still plenty left to do before Sera was back safely in her arms, plenty of places to look, but it was a start.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: there's some vomiting in this one.
> 
> This section was also getting a bit Long™, so I'm splitting it up, mostly based on how much I can write in a given amount of time. Hope it doesn't mess with the flow of the story too much.

_ Cool water from the showerhead beat down on her head, sluicing over her naked skin. Bastila was nibbling on her neck, hands roaming freely over her body, nimble fingers skirting teasingly across sensitive flesh, dipping into intimate hollows. The water poured over her face, her nose, covering her mouth, cutting off her breath… _

_ She was slammed into the tiles, knocking all of the air out of her. Her ribs creaked painfully as a heavy knee landed in the middle of her back, stopping her lungs from drawing in more oxygen, pressing her into the hard floor. Her lungs were burning and her body was in agony. She scrabbled at the floor beneath her, trying to push herself up, trying to dig through the concrete to get away. The smell of rancid sweat and rust and mould surrounded her, hard hands clawing at her, tearing at her flesh, ripping her skin. Her eye was plucked from her skull and she tried to scream but she was drowning in blood. _

Sera screamed, the sound coming out wet and garbled through the gunk in her mouth. There was an odd, chemical taste on her tongue. She panicked, slapping at the hands touching her, frantic to get away from her assailants.

“It’s awake! Ghost, go get the bomb!”

More hands grabbed at her, pulling her this way and that. She lashed out, striking anything she could reach.

“Don’t touch me! Get away!”

She pushed herself backwards, trying to put as much distance between herself and… whoever only to come up short when her back thumped into the wall behind her. Her eyes were stinging, something obscuring her vision. Why couldn’t she see properly? Swinging her left arm in a wide arc to keep everyone away, she scraped at the crap covering her face, her mind recoiling from itself when her fingers entered the obscene cavity in her skull where her left eye used to be.

“Go on, go away,” a new voice said, accompanied by the sound of hard slapping and answering yelps. “How would you feel if someone started poking you in your sleep, huh?”

Sera cleared the rest of the gunk from her remaining eye, remembrance of recent events returning in an unpleasant flood. A stout individual in grubby and ill-fitting coveralls stood before her, hands on their hips, short fur lying flat and close to their skin covering their scalp in ragged patches. She was in a… room? Or was it a wreckage? It was difficult to tell in the poor lighting, the walls and ceiling sloping away from her at odd angles, everything looking oddly flat.

“No, don’t wipe it all off. It’s for the radiation.”

“What?” Their accent was weird, one Sera couldn’t quite place. “Where am I? What’s going on?” Her voice sounded creaky and weak, like her throat hadn’t seen any moisture in far too long.

There was a minor kerfuffle off to her left, just out the range of her vision. A slightly shorter member of the stout one’s species pushed through the people crowding into the small space.

“Old Man wants to see it,” they said, grabbing Sera’s wrist and pulling her in the direction they’d come from without so much as a by your leave.

She reflexively jerked her arm back. “Hey!”

“You can’t take it away,” the first one objected. “It’s only just woken up!”

“Yeah, don’t I get a say in all this?”

“Old Man wants to see it,” the smaller one reiterated stubbornly, tugging on Sera’s wrist.

The stout one sighed, breath curling out in great whorls into the cold air. “Fine. But it needs to reapply its gel first.”

“What--” Sera was cut off when she got a handful of the sticky, oily gunk shoved into her face, a rough hand smearing it into every crevice. She flinched away, the stuff burning her eye.

“I know it stings but you’re just going to have to get used to it.” They looked over their work and nodded in satisfaction while Sera tried her damnedest not to rub her watering and stinging eye. “Alright. All yours.”

Sera found herself being pulled along, stumbling on wobbly legs as she was drawn off the bed and through the mass of faces peering at her with interest. She tripped over her own feet, feeling unsteady in the overly-large boots and too-big jumpsuit she realized she was wearing. Sera worked her tongue in mouth, trying to scare up some moisture and make her vocal cords work properly, suddenly realizing how hungry she was. Thirsty too. When had she last had something to eat or drink?

“Hold up,” she said, banging into a bit of piping that was closer than she had thought. “Where are we going?”

For a moment she thought she wasn’t going to get a response. And then…

“Old Man…”

“Okay?”

“...Wants to see you.”

Sera sighed, getting tangled in a hanging cable that she didn’t see. She was led along a winding path, breath freezing in her lungs as they got down on their hands and knees more than once to squeeze through a tight and far too long opening in some foul-smelling rubble. Just at the point when she was about to ask if they were lost, they emerged into a large, empty space that tickled something in slightly fuzzy depths Sera’s brain as indistinct shouts and chatter echoed confusingly off the curved walls. At one end, something glinted dully in the uneven and flickering light from multiple glow lamps and panels placed haphazardly around the open space. She was pulled forward once more, only for them both to be stopped by a large, muscular individual, looming over both of them.

“I’ll take it from here, Spike.”

The smaller individual -- Spike? -- stubbornly stood their ground.

“Old Man says…”

The big one held up a hand. “I know what the King said. But this is the War Leader’s bounty and he wants to present it.”

Sera coughed to get their attention. Then coughed properly when her throat turned out to be more dry and sensitive than she had first thought. “Um.”

They ignored her.

“Old Man’s word is law,” Spike continued undeterred. “He told me to get the bounty for him to look at.”

“The War Leader is the  _ King’s _ ,” Big One emphasized this a bit, “right hand. The bounty will go through him first.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Sera said, suddenly not liking all this talk of ‘bounties’.

Big One just gave her a look and rolled his eyes.

Spike tightened his grip on Sera’s wrist to an almost painful degree. “Old Man didn’t mention Leader none. I don’t see what he has to do with any of it.”

Big One stepped closer. “Spike, I am bigger than you.”

The two squared it off, while Sera stood, swaying slightly, trying to make sense of it all through a thumping headache. She noticed that she was shivering, each sensation taking its sweet time piercing the fog in her head. Where the hell was she and how was she going to get home? And what the fuck was that smell?!

She dragged her attention back to the present. The two were still glaring at each other but Spike was starting to fidget nervously under the weight of the Big One’s glowering.

“Hey, can I use your comm?” she said, finally getting two thoughts together long enough to form a course of action. “I have someone I wanna contact.” She didn’t want to go another minute without calling Bastila to tell her she was okay.  _ Then I can apologize for being an asshole and we can sit and talk. _

Spike dropped her wrist and ran away, head tucked into his chest in shame. Big One’s shoulders dropped, relief plain on his face. He gestured towards Sera without looking at her.

“Come.” He started walking, not turning back to see if she was following.

She didn’t budge. “Is there a comm where we’re going?”

He scowled at her in the dim lighting and flexed at her threateningly. She stared back impassively, not really interested in getting into a fight, especially not after…  _ Warm blood burst over her fist. There was a broken cry of a child, a pained and haunting scream. She pressed into the wound, blood and viscera engulfing her hand. The smell of copper was everywhere, inescapable, as the life she had ruined sputtered out and died. _ The blood drained out of Sera’s face, her stomach sickening. Why hadn’t she remembered before? Did the lives of her victims mean so little to her? The Big One’s menacing forgotten, she scrabbled at the collar of her jumpsuit, searching around her neck for Wes’s dog tags while guilt clawed at her.

A slight individual with patches of pale brown fur around their eyes and ears strode up to them, appearing suddenly out of Sera’s blind side. “What is this? What’s taking you so long?”

“It refused to move, War Leader,” Big One said.

“Where is it?” Sera demanded, breath coming out in short, panicked bursts.

“Who  _ cares _ ? Come. We’re late already.”

She started pulling at the jumpsuit, searching in every fold and crevice. “I had a… I was wearing something. A necklace. Where is it?” She had to find it. She had to.

The new individual let out an annoyed huff. “We needed it to patch a water tank. Now, come on. We don’t have much time.”

Shaken by her inability to keep even the simplest promise, she allowed herself to be pushed along, not resisting when the Big One steered her towards the end with the glinting thing. There was a small, rowdy group gathered at the base of the thing, mismatched trestle tables and benches arranged in a loose loop around a fire over which several things were being cooked by the… smell and a mound of detritus and rubble supporting the seat and back of a chair, raised to throne-like prominence above the room. Atop sat one larger and harder than any of the others Sera had seen, a cruel scar running down the deep black fur on their face, through the patch of pure white down their throat and chest. They held a polished metal cup in their hand, from which they took periodic swigs, refilling it from a grubby jug sitting next to their seat, a strong smell of cheap alcohol pervading the air. The thing behind looming over them all, a great, jagged slab of some material Sera didn’t recognize covered in scratches she couldn’t quite make sense of, throwing golden reflections from the sputtering lamps and the fire around the space.

The slight individual, the War Leader, made some sign that Sera didn’t quite see and she felt Big One’s hand grab her by the scruff of her neck. Sera could hear people whispering and nudging each other, awareness of their arrival rippling through the small group. The laser focus curiosity of dozens of eyes converged on Sera and she would have squirmed away from their gaze were it not for the powerful grip rooting her to the spot. Her arm was seized in a painful grasp.

“ _ Don’t _ embarrass me,” the War Leader hissed into her ear.

They stepped forward without waiting for Sera’s response, raising their hand to catch the attention of the one on the throne.

“My King,” they said, back straight and hands clasped neatly behind them. “The bounty I captured on our last raid has finally awoken. Let me present it to you, my King.”

The one on the throne turned an indolent eye on the three of them.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Little Bone  _ coming _ with his _ Right Hand _ .” The rest of the group sniggered and Sera felt Big One’s grip tighten painfully on the back of her neck. “You here to deliver the last piece of crap from the trip I sent you on? Did you manage to find anything of worth at all digging around in the trash? All I see is some,” he looked Sera over, seeming unimpressed by what he found, “ _ worthless _ scrap of a criminal.”

The group laughed. Sera flinched.

“Where are you even  _ from _ , criminal?”

“I…” Sera froze, uncertain how much she wanted to reveal but mindful of the War Leader’s implied threat. “I, uh, I’m from a, an agricultural system. A farming planet,” she clarified unnecessarily.

“And where abouts is this farming planet,  _ criminal _ ? How did you even  _ get _ here?” He said it casually but there was a hungry light in his eyes.

“It’s, uh… My ship was attacked on my way back home and was knocked off course.” She swallowed. “If you give me a map, I can show you where.”

The King let out a soft huff and slumped back into his throne, taking a long drink from his cup.

Sera tried again. “Please. My partner is waiting at home for me. She will be very unhappy if I don’t make it home safe and sound soon.”

He grinned at his underling, long canines gleaming evilly in the light of the fire. “Is this  _ really _ the best you could do,  _ Little Bone _ ?”

Sera could feel the War Leader vibrating with shame and humiliation from their King’s words, the paler skin on the back of their neck reddening under their neatly shaved fur.

The King barked out a laugh, loud and shocking, making everyone jump.

“I’m just messing with you, Leader! Can’t you take a joke!” He kept laughing, stamping his feet and pointing at his War Leader as if he had told the funniest joke in the galaxy. From the way every single member of the formerly rowdy group watched the King warily, Sera surmised that this was not an uncommon event. “Go on! Sit down, all of you! We’ve been roasting up the last of the meat our mighty War Leader brought back for us!”

Sera heard a relieved sigh coming from Big One still maintaining a vice grip on the back of her neck. But the War Leader didn’t seem quite so thrilled, stalking towards a seat near the throne, head down and jaw tight. Sera, at a loss of what else to do, made to follow, only for Big One to pull her up short and direct her forcefully towards a spot on a bench between two fidgeting individuals. Someone nearby was complaining about something to another, the other responding with calm but annoyed firmness. She sat a little awkwardly, arms folded tight across her chest to ward off the bitter cold. The fire provided warmth but not as much as she would have thought given its size. She glanced around, shifting awkwardly on the bench until the vision of her remaining eye was centred on her surroundings. Nobody else seemed bothered by it. Was it because of her injuries? She surreptitiously slid a hand up around the back of her neck, the gunk that had been slathered on her having dried and thickened to a viscous mess beneath her fingers. Tentatively, to avoid causing herself any further harm, she sought out the wound where her implant port used to be but was astonished to find a smooth hollow of oddly sensitive scar tissue instead. The wound had completely healed.  _ How the hell long have I been out?! _ Her head had also been shaved, apparently. Rather badly too, although that was significantly less disturbing than the thought that time had slipped by unnoticed.

Before she had time to descend into an anxious spiral of Bastila thinking she had disappeared for good, the person sitting next to her nudged her. She jerked her head up to see a platter of… something being offered to her by her neighbour. He smiled, a little shyly, reminding Sera of someone she couldn’t quite place at the moment, then noticed that others were watching him and scowled fiercely at her. She took the platter. None of it looked appealing but she was fucking hungry and she knew she needed to eat. Selecting a piece at random, she passed the platter on. She sniffed at it, unease rippling in the Force. Everybody else was tucking in, paying no heed to decorum, so she took a bite. It was meaty. She didn’t like it. Fairly plainly prepared, no sauce or spices. A bit dry and tough too.

Someone was watching her. She glanced up and met the King’s gaze. He was leaning forward, watching her eat intently, almost gleefully, a cruel grin on his face. She took a second look at the rest of the group. They ate as though they were starving, as if it were their last meal, but they also ate grimly, mechanically shoving food into their mouths and swallowing it. Her gaze dropped to the bone in her hand. The metacarpal slipped numbly from her fingers, the flesh still attached to it hitting the table with a soft thunk. Sera clapped a hand to her mouth, gorge rising in her throat. The King’s eyes bore into her, daring her to swallow, to take her sustenance in any way possible. She tasted bile in her mouth. Could she do it? Did she  _ want _ to?

Sera pushed herself away from the bench, falling to her knees and retching, vomiting up every shred of sentient flesh in her stomach. There was cruel laughter behind her.

“Mitri, I can’t find my stuffed salish…”

Sera’s eyes snapped up. A small individual, although not that much smaller than the rest, was tugging on another’s arm, sounding whiny and tired.

“ _ Mitri _ …”

“Nadi, I  _ told _ you not to bring it up here!”

The little one stamped their foot. “It’s Acid!”

Sera gazed around the group, noting the fidgeting, the size difference between the smallest and the largest, the raucous but simple jokes.

“Where are your parents?” she asked, horrified.

Big One and the War Leader both scowled at her. The King - the teenager - yawned boredly and opened his mouth to respond when a kid ran frantically up to the throne, the ragged spacesuit they were wearing steaming in the cold.

“They got us! Bikova came back early! Rot got caught!” He bent over at the waist, huffing and coughing from exertion.

The King smirked at the shocked look on Sera’s face.

“Get it a spacesuit!” he said, pointing at Sera. “We’re going to show it what happens when someone crosses us!”

A great cheer went up, the smaller kids jumping around, their wretched meal forgotten while Sera was hauled off by two bigger kids at the King’s sign and stuffed into a musty old spacesuit that had been designed for someone much broader and taller than her. Before she could complain about the smell, they dragged her along a twisting and confusing route, her feet suddenly leaving the ground as the gravity gave out beneath her. She let out an undignified squeak and grabbed at the two kids who were inexplicably rooted to the ground.

“Fuckin’ idiot,” the one kid said bluntly, giving something on her stomach an uncomfortably hard slap.

“Yeah! Fuckin’ idiot!” the other said cheerfully.

The suit around her grew heavy, dropping her back to the ground.  _ Oh, yeah. Gravity harness _ , she thought, feeling like bit of a fucking idiot. Her weighted feet squished into something as she landed, sinking into a surface that was less solid than she realized. She glanced down, her foot illuminated by a thin shaft of bright light.  _ Diapers? _ She looked around, realizing that they had reached what appeared to be the surface. Not just diapers, trash of all kinds stretching out as far as the eye could see, lit harshly in the unfiltered light of space. Above them, a miasma of trash and dust hung thickly around a dirty brown planet, looking distinctly unspectacular from their vantage point. Sera stared at it, then blinked, trying to figure out where the hell they might be.

“Stop gawping and get over here, criminal!”

A tossed piece of rubble accompanied the deafening blast over the suit’s internal comm indicating where the King was yelling at her from. He and the rest of the kids all stood in suits as worn and ill-fitting as her own, only the King and a few of the larger kids getting close to filling them out. They were all next to a mismatched collection of roughly log-shaped things with a stubby cone on the front that Sera’s brain was trying to convince her were speeder bikes but their proportions were all wrong. And they looked like they were all engine.

The kid who had activated her suit’s gravity gave her a shove in the direction of the larger group. Sera trotted forward, just barely missing the other kid’s jovial shove. The rest had all mounted their vehicle things, piling on three or four per machine, tiny kids in their baggy spacesuits perching precariously between their larger brethren. She was pushed onto one of the vehicles behind and found herself sandwiched uncomfortably between two older kids.

“Um…” she said, eyeing one little one sitting on the very end of a vehicle, swinging their legs back and forth right above the engine’s propulsion nozzle.

“Stop making a scene,” the kid in front of her hissed. It was the War Leader.

Sera searched for the suit’s controls to switch over to a private comm channel but there didn’t seem to be one.

“Shouldn’t these things have seatbelts?” she whispered, hoping to be ignored by the rest of the group’s chattering.

“I don’t know what kind girly shit you’re talking about. Now, keep your mouth shut and hold on.”

Sera frowned and opened her mouth to respond when the King gave a shout and a roar went up in response from the group. The engines all ignited, exhaust glowing hot and bright in the marginal atmosphere of the satellite. Sera grabbed at the plating of the rattling and shaking vehicle beneath her, holding on for dear fucking life as they rocketed from the foetid trash field towards the planet below, warnings jangling in the Force the whole way. She nearly wet herself when they hit the atmosphere and she found herself engulfed in sixteen hundred degree plasma, only the thin blue sparking of a heat shield and a  _ very _ wonky inertial damper protecting them from the forces of reentry.

They shot through the atmosphere, coming to a jarring, screeching halt as the kids skidded their still-hot vehicle things across icy ground, using friction as their brake. Sera prised herself off her seat while the rest hopped off gleefully, full of youthful energy, pulling helmets and spacesuits off. She tentatively popped the seals on her helmet, getting a whiff of the damp and mouldy air before removing it fully. There probably wasn’t much need to be so careful, having breathed the same air as the kids for who knows how long back on their base thing. But she’d had a rough day, her head was aching, her mouth still tasted of sick and there was no harm in being cautious.

Frosty tundra stretched out in all directions. A large expanse of chilly looking water lay beyond what she presumed to be a village, rickety agricultural machinery that Bastila would probably be able to identify moving slowly across its surface and a small herd of some sort of chunky animal foraging at its edges. Sera thought there might be a range of mountains off in the distance but it was difficult to tell against the dingy sky. She disengaged the gravity harness and peeled off her spacesuit as she felt her spine decompress, cantering to catch up with the others as they made for the ragged collection of buildings clinging to the grubby earth.

The kids ran through the village, yelling and smashing windows as they went, overturning containers and shoving aside whomever they met. Sera stared after them in horror. Then her brain kicked into gear as she wondered what she had been expecting and she ran after them, catching a pregnant young woman as she was about to fall. The young woman gave her a startled look before Sera chased to catch up with the head of the group, not quite sure what she was going to do when she got there.

The bulk of the kids were clustered around the entrance to a beat up warehouse, a crowd of locals forming around the disturbance. Sera struggled to push her way through to the front, getting more odd looks as she passed. There was a commotion and the teenage King emerged from the warehouse followed by a couple of the bigger kids manhandling a man in worn workman’s clothes with a stream of blood flowing through thinning fur on his head out of the building. There was a thick belt in his hand and he was yelling obscenities at the King as he struggled. Behind them came a crying boy covered in welts from head to toe carried by a group of larger boys. A mixture of alarmed and curious murmurings came from the crowd of onlookers, some scandalized by the swearing man’s behaviour and the intrusion of the King’s band, some excited to have some break to the tedium of their lives, some happy to see their son’s and siblings, gone for so long.

Sera wriggled through the mass of people to reach the boy. The older boys didn’t want to let her through but were more interested in watching the altercation between their King and the older man to pay her too much mind. The boy was badly beaten, back a mass of bruises and he was bleeding from several cuts where the belt had broken his skin. He flinched when Sera laid a careful hand on his shoulder, the pained tremors that wracked his body slowly subsiding as she pushed as much healing energy as she could into him.

“Your father should have beaten you harder if you can’t keep your followers in line, boy! You never could--!”

The man’s words were cut off when the King struck him hard across the mouth, turning the crowd’s murmurings angry and disapproving, the King’s face twisting around his scar into a cruel mask. The man spat out a mouthful of blood on the frozen ground and glowered up at the youth, lips curled in a sneer.

“Just you wait until I catch you without your little posse, boy, and I’ll show you how a  _ real _ man deals with his enemies.”

“That’ll be difficult for you to do after we’ve finished teaching you a lesson,  _ old man _ ,” the King said, wresting the belt from the older man’s grasp and winding it around his own hand.

It was no good. There was only so much she could do to relieve the boy’s pain and next to nothing that she could do towards actually healing him. She took a deep breath.

“Does anyone have a medpac or some kolto that I could use?” she said loudly and clearly, projecting her voice over the noisy crowd.

The old man laughed. “What lesson? Your thieving brat spoiled our last clean tank of water. I was just taking my pound of flesh.”

There were far too many satisfied nods and shouts of agreement from the crowd.

“Please!” Sera said, trying again. “This kid needs treatment! Is there a doctor or something similar nearby?”

The King raised his hand and brought the belt down in a cruel blow against the older man’s chest. “I’m going to break your arms and legs, old man, then I’m going to rape your wife and your daughters while you watch. Then I’m going to--”

Sera’s temper finally snapped. “What the  _ fucking hell _ is wrong with all of you?”

Her roar cut through the air, silencing every tongue. Several hundred pairs of eyes trained on her showing varying degrees of shock, surprise and anger.

“There is an  _ injured child _ here! Can you not take  _ five minutes _ to--”

Her head jerked back a moment too late as the King backhanded her, reflexes slow after so long living in peace alongside the love of her life.

“Do not interrupt me when I am speaking!” the King yelled in her face, breath reeking of alcohol.

Her face stung -- a lot! -- but she was too pissed off to care.

“This child is--!”

She was ready this time when the King lashed out, catching his wrist and glaring at him.

“This child is under  _ your _ care. His well being is more important than any fucking feud you happen to be having!”

For the briefest moment, it seemed as though the young man didn’t know how to respond to this, looking uncertain and lost and very young. Then his expression hardened up and he turned sharply away from her.

“Demon! Reaper! Clear a ring! The outsider thinks it can challenge me!”

There was a flurry of activity. The two named kids moved into the crowd, directing adults and kids alike to clear a space. For their part, the villagers seemed only too happy to stand back and watch the entertainment, small children, both of the King’s band and those belonging to the village, sent off to retrieve refreshments and one or two bets being negotiated. The War Leader walked past her, catching her eye and shaking their head disapprovingly. Before she could respond, a stout man who looked vaguely familiar elbowed his way through the crowd and knelt beside her and the injured boy.

“Hello,” he said genially. “I’m the closest thing we have to a doctor. I’ll make sure young Nico here is taken care of.”

“Shuko, you leave that boy exactly as he is!” the older man who had started all of this said. “He has to learn the consequences of his actions!”

Shuko waved him off, smiling placidly at Sera. “Good luck for your fight with Sandri, outsider. It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out.”

“Uh, thanks?”  _ Fight? Fuck, duh, of course. _ “Um, any advice?”

Shuko shook his head, still smiling that calm, happy smile. “None whatsoever. We haven’t seen Sandri fight since he killed his father a few years ago. Who knows what else he’s learned since then.”

_ Right, to the death. _ “Fuck’s sake,” she muttered, dusting off her hands and settling herself into her oversized jumpsuit as best as she could, shifting around to feel for any loose folds of fabric that might trip her up.  _ How do I get myself into these fucking messes? _

Turning her back on the injured boy and not-quite-Doctor Shuko, she faced the area that had been cleared for them. The King -- Sandri -- was stripped to the waist, muscles rippling beneath his black fur. Sera didn’t think she’d realized just how tall he was.  _ Shit. Fuck. _ She took a deep breath.  _ He’s also been drinking heavily, so use that to your advantage. Subdue him quickly so you don’t have to hurt him. _ She stepped out into the clearing. A small cheer went up. One or two of the villagers clapped and called the King’s name, only to be shushed by those around them. It didn’t stop the cheers going up though, the crowd seemingly uncertain whether they were supporting the drunken, violent son of the village or the alien newcomer who had cussed them all out.

Sandri shot forward, faster than she was expecting, fist swinging in a wide arc for Sera’s head. She ducked quickly, circling around him out of his reach and aiming a sharp jab at his torso. Her blow came up short, missing Sandri for a good few inches. She cursed and jumped back, stomach clenching. She’d forgotten about her fucking depth perception! Keeping her distance, she blocked each of Sandri’s heavy blows, mind racing for a way around her disability.

No ideas were forthcoming. And Sandri had figured out that she wasn’t some green civilian who had never been in a fight and was tightening up his swings, not giving anything away about his next moves. Could she keep him moving until he tired himself out? When she felt like shit and she  _ still _ hadn’t had a chance to rinse out her mouth or get some decent food in her stomach? While her opponent was a teenager in the flower of his youth and at the height of his energy? Fuck, it made her tired just thinking about it. So she thought “fuck it”, darted in close and kicked him in the balls.

Sandri went down as a disapproving cry from the crowd went up. He grabbed at Sera’s oversized jumpsuit as he fell, dragging her to the ground. She brought her elbow down squarely in his face, just barely missing his similarly aimed fist coming up the other way. The crowd cheered, their previous displeasure forgotten. Sandri kicked at her legs and flipped them both over, grabbing at her neck and face and raining blows down from above. Sera kept her forearms up to protect her head while she used her legs to lever him up off the ground. He got ahold of her neck, squeezing the life out of her. Her throat burned, her vision dulled around the edges…

_ Her fist crunched into the hard, metal jaw of her opponent, the bones of her hand breaking under the pressure. Uncaring, she drew her shattered fist back and slammed it into the supple blood-red armour around her opponent’s side… _

_ Her blow sank into the broken flesh of her opponent, releasing a torrent of blood over her fist… _

_ Blood spurted around her knife embedded in her enemy’s neck. Gloved hand gripping his masked face as he struggled, she twisted the knife free and thrust it back into his flesh… _

Her fist flew out, catching him in the throat and the nose in quick succession, then thumping him hard in the stomach. Not giving Sandri time to collect himself, Sera kicked explosively at the ground, knocking the young man off her. She reversed their positions quickly, grabbing him from behind and getting him in a headlock. He clawed at her hands, kicking and thrashing to wrest control away from her. But she held on doggedly, feeling his attempts grow weaker as his breath grew shorter. Her head felt light, there was a static buzzing in her ears, but she just had to hold on a little while longer until he was out cold.

~~~

A child, maybe more than one, was jumping up and down nearby and chattering away in a tone that might be considered by some to constitute “yelling”. Further away it sounded like there was… talking? Sera’s eyes fluttered open. There was a painted ceiling above her, blue and green patterns that must have been bright and colourful once upon a time. She closed her eyes again. Her head ached. More than ached, actually. There was a metallic taste in her mouth, her tongue and cheeks throbbing. She made to lift her hand to investigate only to find that that was more difficult than it sounded. She was so fucking tired. She felt like she’d been beaten like one of Mrs Bima’s old rugs and not in the fun way. After many failed attempts, she got her hand up to her mouth and felt around blindly with the tips of her fingers. She whimpered pathetically as the salt on her skin met lacerated flesh. Her tongue and the inside of her cheeks were badly cut up, feeling like she’d been gnawing on them like it was her last meal.

Sera struggled to sit up. She felt terrible, just completely, absolutely like shit. She didn’t think she’d felt this tired and bruised and just sore since, probably since after the Star Forge, actually, when the adrenaline had left her and the physical cost of the day’s battle had made itself known. The difference was she had a warm girlfriend to cuddle with then.  _ Where the hell is she, anyway? _ Sera turned her head, certain she heard Bastila’s footstep behind her. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. Of course she wasn’t. Sera was still in parts unknown and hadn’t had a chance to call home yet. She shook her head, feeling sluggish and groggy. She had been doing something. Somewhere else, not here. What the fuck was it?

There was a piercing shriek that threatened to separate the flesh from her bones. Then she was smacked in the face with something soft and plush before childish footsteps thundered away from her.

“It’s awake!” the voice yelled excitedly. “Mama, it’s awake!”

_ So that was a friendly smack in the face then? _ She ran a hand over her face, feeling delicate. “Ow…”

“Nadi, use your inside voice, please. Lana, would you get the outsider something to drink and set a place for them at the table?”

“It’s  _ Acid _ !”

“Why do I have to do it? If Nadi’s old enough to run away to the moon, he’s old enough to do some chores.”

“Don’t talk back to your mother, girl,” a different adult said sharply.

Sera struggled up from what she realized was someone’s couch, old and thin and covered in cushions and throws that were themselves old and thin, and tottered through to where the voices were coming from to head off any arguments between parent and child. She found them all in the room next door, a large gathering of mostly what she presumed to be adults and a few children clustered around a table in a room that was really too small for all of them. The not-quite doctor from before spotted her standing in the doorway and raised a glass in her direction.

“The conquering hero returns,” he said loudly, attracting the attention of most of the room. “Cheers!” Then he drained his glass in one long gulp, letting out a satisfied gasp at the end.

_ Hero? _ “Ah!” The fight! Of course! How could she forget? How  _ did _ she forget?

“Come!” He slapped the seat next to him. “We must celebrate!” It seemed as though that had not been his first glass of the evening.

“Um…” Sera slipped awkwardly in between everyone onto the seat, feeling stiff and sore. “Did I win?”  _ It doesn’t feel like it. I had gotten Sandri into a chokehold, ready to subdue him, and then… _

The not-quite doctor, Shuko, she remembered, laughed, slapping her back heartily.  _ Definitely not his first glass. _ The little one from earlier in the day, the little shrieker who had lost (and apparently found again) his stuffed thingy, wriggled in next to Sera.

“You had him!” he said, still not using his inside voice. “You had the Old Man and you were beating him and then you started spazzing out, like…” He demonstrated, flailing his arms and shoulders about, rolling his eyes back in his head. Then he laughed, slapping his hands on the table.

Sera felt featureless dread creep over her. “Uh. Uh-huh.”

An older woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “Little boys should be seen and not heard.”

Another woman with a pristine patch of white down her chin and throat contrasting sharply with her pitch black fur gave the little boy a hard look. “Especially little boys who abandon kith and kin to live with ravening beasts.”

“Leave the boy be, Anasha,” Shuko said, inebriation making him loud. “It’s only natural for a young man to seek out fame and renown amongst his peers.”

Sera was only half paying attention to all this when she felt a nudge at her elbow on her left side. She turned, pulling her torso and neck around to an awkward degree until she could see another woman altogether standing at her side offering her a glass full to the brim.

“I’m sorry, outsider,” she said with a syrupy sweet tone. “Usually we wouldn’t even  _ think _ , or at least  _ I _ wouldn’t, to offer you anything that Riaky had a hand in brewing but, as I’m sure you are aware, Nico’s eldest fouled the last clean water we had for the week, so I’m afraid you’ll have to make do.”

Sera took the glass. “Um…”

“He should be whipped in the streets for what he did,” an older woman, lean and wrinkled with fur that was mostly grey said, “not coddled by his uncle and allowed to sleep off his punishment.” She shook a knobbly finger in Shuko’s direction. “In my day, our elders never let us get away with any cheek or insolence. And we turned out perfectly. None of this fooling around with strangers, chasing after hollow dreams and striking the parents who raised us!”

Shuko gave her a quelling look. “It was an accident. They were only trying to get some supplies.”

“Andrian shouldn’t have gotten involved anyway,” said a woman on the other end of the table as she stirred something into her drink. “It’s a father’s job to discipline his children.”

“Wait,” Sera said, feeling a little slow on the uptake. “You’re that kid’s uncle.”

“I am,” Shuko said, smiling. “He’s my younger brother’s boy. Thank you for concerning yourself with his well being, outsider.”

“No problem. Um, it’s Sera.”

A woman bustled through the door opposite, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Food’s almost ready. We’re just waiting for Dara’s stew to heat through,” she said. Sera recognized her as the parental voice from a few moments ago. “Why don’t you go through and wash that industrial stink off.” She addressed this to Sera. “Nadi will show you the way.”

“ _ Acid… _ ”

“Yes, dear. Don’t forget to scrub yourself clean too or there won’t be any dinner.”

“‘Kay.”

Nadi -  _ Acid _ \- grabbed Sera by the arm and started pulling her away. She placed her glass carefully on the table and followed him. He led her to a small refresher in the back where he handed her a damp hand towel, then got one for himself, bouncing up and down on his toes humming a little tune while he cleaned the gunk off his face and neck with practiced efficiency. Sera caught a glimpse of herself in the chipped but spotless mirror, flinching her gaze away quickly. Screwing her eye firmly shut, she followed the little boy’s lead, stopping to sniff the towel before she touched it to her face. Whatever it was soaked with had an odd smell. Not water, she didn’t think. She scrubbed the weird crap from her skin, skirting over the left side of her face.

Acid finished up before her, running off back to the others. Sera followed more slowly, still drained from her fight with Sandri and the, the seizure or whatever that she’d had after. She rolled her shoulders as she approached the dining room, trying to release the tension within.

“--don’t know where it came from or what it’s doing here.”

“Did you hear? Apparently, young Sandri called it a criminal before he left.”

“Ellina told Vita that Ulale’s youngest, you know, the one that was making free with our Gena, said that Imil picked it up on some inferno of a planet, not a single thing left standing, everything blown to smithereens while it lay there all covered in blood.” They snapped their fingers to indicate what they thought of that.

Someone clicked their tongue disapprovingly. “Leave it to that one to bring a rascal here. Nothing but trouble he’s been since the day he popped out of his mother’s womb.”

Sera stood frozen just beyond the door, stomach twisting into tight knots. For a single paranoid instant, she believed they would figure out who she was, turn on her and deliver swift and brutal justice. Then she shook it off, unable to stop her shoulders hunching defensively when she walked back through the door.  _ It doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone soon, back home. _ She took her seat next to Shuko as large platters and dishes were brought to the table by Acid’s mother and sisters, loading it down until the table groaned. Sera eyed the steaming food suspiciously, remembering her last meal in this system.

“Um…” she said, taking the plate offered to her by a pregnant teenager and picking selectively from what looked the most botanical. Which there wasn’t much of. Everything looked very meaty. “Could I use your comm? I need to call my girlfriend to come pick me up.”

Acid’s mother gave her an odd look. “I think Vlasi Zhaoffedov might have one. You can ask him in the morning.”

Sera frowned, cocking her head in surprise. “Okay?”

A heavy bowl was thrust in her direction.

“Take some of Dara’s salish stew, outsider. She spent all morning cooking it.”

“It’s Sera,” she reiterated, taking a spoonful to be polite.

“So, outsider,” one of the women who had been gossiping about her said, “tell us about your family and where you come from.”

Sera speared a pasty bit of tuber. “Uh, I live with my girlfriend on a station in the Garqi system. We do maintenance work in the area.” She popped the bite in her mouth. It had the taste and texture of packing material.

“Never heard of it!” an old man said into his drink.

“No, no,” the woman said with an insistent smile. “Not where you live now, outsider. Where are you  _ from _ ?”

Sera swallowed, the food going down with some difficulty. “Um. I’m, um…”  _ Fuck _ . “I’m… I’m from the Deralia system, I guess.”  _ That didn’t sound sketchy  _ at all _. _

The woman wouldn’t be turned aside. “What about your family? What do they do?”

_ What’s it to you? _ “Uh, I don’t really know, actually. I’m, well, I’m an orphan, I suppose.”  _ There’s no reason whatsoever for that to be true. It’s entirely likely that you’re just saying that to milk sympathy. _ She took another tasteless bite of the food in front of her, chewing and swallowing quickly to buy herself some time. “My, um, my girlfriend is my family.”

This earned her a smile that told her loud and clear how little the woman thought of  _ that _ .

“Rootless troublemakers,” one of the elderly women scoffed. Sera didn’t think she intended for Sera to hear her. Or at least she hoped she didn’t. “Like Lenta’s bastard, bringing shame on his grandfather, shattering his mother’s mind. Never trust a brat when you don’t know what foul blood it has swimming in its veins. Parasites, the lot of them!”

“Um,” Sera said, pushing her food around her plate. “So when’s the next ship drop by? I need to get home soon.”

An old man, one of the few at the table, laughed around a mouthful of some kind of meat paste. “You’re going to be waiting a long time, I think, outsider. There’s been no ships here for years.”

Sera felt cold dread settling into her bones. Certainly she’d misunderstood. “Uh… Well, where can I hire a ship to take me off-world then? Or charter one to come pick me up?”

“No, there’s no one! Not since those  _ fucking kids _ scared all the traders away!”

“Now, Arav, that’s being unfair,” Shuko piped up after his long silence. “The traders were stopping coming long before Sandri or anyone did anything. You can’t blame them for that.”

“Rubbish! Of course I can!”

“So…” Sera swallowed. “So you’re saying that I’m stuck here?”

“Don’t you worry, outsider. I’m sure someone will come any day now,” Acid’s mother said like she didn’t believe it.

“Ha! Don’t get your hopes up!” Arav said gleefully. “Nobody’s going to make it here with all that trash cluttering the system! And that animal, Sandri, keeps it that way, making sure only him and his thugs can navigate out of the system!”

Sera clutched her head between her hands, staring blindly at the plate in front of her. “This can’t be happening…”

Someone patted her shoulder. “Pay them no mind, outsider. Come on. Eat up before your stew gets cold.”

“I tell you, we should have putten that boy down the instant he raised his hand against his father! No good ever comes from uppity brats!”

Brain numb from shock, she mechanically did as she was told, skewering a fatty chunk of meat dripping with sauce and raising it to her lips. A strong sense of revulsion came over her, snapping her back to the present. The meat chunk looked unappetizingly fleshy to her but she knew others would find it rich and savoury.  _ Canderous would love a meal like this. _ She didn’t want to eat it, particularly not after… Her mind skittered away from the memory of her last meal, not allowing herself to dwell on it.  _ Do they even know what their kids are eating up there? _ Perhaps it was better if they didn’t.

She brought the bite up to her mouth again, then thought better of it. She turned to the woman who had offered her the stew and put on her most pleasant and interested smile.

“Excuse me. I’m not familiar with salish. What kind of creature are they?”  _ Please, please, please, don’t say it’s a person. Please, I can’t take it again today. I will cry. Or vomit. Or both. _

The woman frowned. “It’s merely common livestock, outsider. I don’t know what you’re used to on your fancy station but we’re simple, unassuming folk here and we eat what we’re able.”

“Doesn’t know what a salish is,” muttered the woman with the white fur on her neck, Anasha, Sera thought she was. “I thought it came from an agricultural system? Full of lies, it is. I wouldn’t trust it to water my garden.”

Sera chose to ignore this.  _ Must be my hearing is better than theirs. _ Since there were no other objections to the stew other than she simply didn’t want it, she forced the bite into her mouth, chewed it and swallowed it.

Not five minutes later, she was racing to the refresher to empty the contents of her stomach. Her stomach convulsed, forcing half-digested food up her throat with such force that vomit and acid poured up and out her nose, burning her nasal passages. The acid stripped the lining from the inside of her nose, causing her nose to bleed, tears streaming from her eye from the pain, blood and vomit mixing together as it splashed in unending waves into the sink she was bent over, clogging up the plug hole. Finally, there was nothing left for her stomach to disgorge and she managed to slowly, painfully get her heaving under control. She leant heavily on the sink, trembling and whimpering softly as the bleeding from her nose slowed and stopped but the acidic stench remained.

“Guess it didn’t like your stew very much, Dara.”

“Cheeky bitch, throwing up all that good food. Doesn’t it know there’s children that are starving?”

“Ashali, come look, you were right. The outsider  _ does _ bleed red!”

A hand squeezed her shoulder.

“Here you go, outsider,” Acid’s mother said, offering her the drink she had been ignoring. “You wash your mouth out and we’ll get you cleaned up.”

“Thank you,” Sera said shakily, feeling grey and cold and weak. The liquid was very alcoholic, as she had suspected, but it worked just fine for rinsing the foul taste from her mouth and replacing it with a completely different unwanted taste.

“Leave it to a rootless outsider to ruin a meal,” Anasha muttered before turning away.

~~~

They gave her a bowl of the packing material tubers, plain, with nothing on them accompanied by a few more jabs about ‘wasted food’ from the older women of the group. After the scent of the apparently quite tasty stew (she knew this because several at the table insisted on telling her just how delicious it was) threatened to make her spew her guts out, she retreated with her miserable meal to the couch that she’d awoken on. Acid joined her, very impressed by her regurgitatitive prowess, chattering away and asking her all kinds of questions until he grew crotchety and over-tired and his mother carried him away to bed. His sisters, Inabi and Lana, tried to join in but were kept busy with running back and forth to the kitchen, helping their mother keep the meal running smoothly.

She ate in silence after that, weak and shaky from her vomiting, feeling the hard slats of the couch through the thin upholstery poking into her ass. The tubers weren’t very filling, at all, but she couldn’t afford to go any longer without getting any sustenance that wasn’t going to come back the other way two seconds later. Especially when she didn’t know…  _ Fuck, how long have I been gone? _ It seemed like both a few days and a million years for her, in the way that traumatic events seem to stretch and compress time seemingly at random. She bit her spoon, trying to piece together how the hell she got here. Well, she was  _ here _ because she lost a fist fight against a teenager and then ate some toxic stew and her body had tried to purge itself. But how had she gotten to this system? Sera frowned. She’d been on a, well, Sith border world that was still holding onto power, presumably. And she’d… Sera swallowed. She wasn’t going to think about it right now. She -  _ And Wes _ \- ended up there because she jammed their communications equipment and sent out a distress signal that had been answered by a Sith patrol. And she did that because she stupidly fell into their trap, got her ship captured and led HK on a hare-brained scheme that got him torn to pieces and stranded T3 on a ship full of armed criminals. Because she stopped off to get flowers to apologise to Bastila. Because she’d been a shitty girlfriend and yelled at her, and then a coward and ran off. Because of a kid bringing up the truth. Because of who she was.

The commotion in the room next door altered slightly and most of the adults all began filing in to where she sat. Sera sat up straight, unbending herself from how she’d hunched over herself in shame and grief, and ran a quick hand over her face to make sure there were no tears streaming down her face while they made their long, drawn-out farewells. They ignored her, thankfully, only making some poorly disguised queries to Acid’s mother about whether she felt safe with a… ‘you know’ around.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, love. If I can handle my Tefi and I can certainly handle one skinny outsider!”

This was apparently enough to set everybody’s minds at ease (although, there was also some suspiciously raucous laughter from a few of the women) and soon all of them were gone except for Sera and Acid’s mother.

“Now then, let’s get you settled down for the night. I hope you don’t mind the couch, outsider. It’s either that or my bed and I don’t think my Tefi would be too pleased by that,” she said and then laughed as though she’d made a joke.

“Um, no, that’s, uh… Thanks for putting me up for the night, Mrs…”

“Just Lina, please.” She chuckled. “I should keep you around, outsider, to teach my husband some manners,” she said with a saucy wink.

Sera wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. ‘Settling down’ mostly involved being given an extra blanket for the couch, although it was a nicer blanket than the ones already on it. It still wasn’t all that comfortable and Sera worried that she might not be able to sleep all that easily. But she must have been more exhausted than she thought because the next thing she knew she was being woken by loud whispers and there was a bag over her head.

“But I want to come  _ wiithh _ …”

“Inabi, go back to bed. I’m on important business.”

A small foot stamped. “You’re always on important business! Why don’t  _ we _ get to come along?”

“Because you’re a girl and you can’t come with!”

“That’s not fair! Nadi gets to go along with you and he’s only little!”

“Nadi’s a boy!”

“No, he’s not! He’s a baby!”

“Not to be rude, kid,” Sera said, her heart starting to race, “but I don’t do well with things against my face. I’m gonna take this thing off before I freak out and embarrass us all.”

“Aargh! See? You woke it up.”

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

“That big kid king of yours send you to bump me off?” Sera said with a smile.

The boy blushed under his fur. “No! Old Man just said he wants to talk with you. Think he was impressed with the way you, you know…” He mimed punching something.

His youngest sister didn’t look too impressed herself. “Why does the outsider get to come with and I don’t?”

“Because--!”

His other sister appeared beside him and poked him in the arm. “Hey, you’re going to wake Nadi if you don’t keep it down.”

“I’m trying to keep it down but Inabi--”

“Did not!”

“Hey, shut up.”

“No, you shut up!”

_ Didn’t someone say that the War Leader - or Imil? - had picked me up on a planet somewhere? _ “Hey, kid,” Sera said, cutting off their argument. “Have you lot up there got ships that can go off-planet? Like, not just hop to nearby planets but actually go to other systems?”

“Yeah, although I haven’t been chosen to go yet. Old Man’s been sending out raids but so far you’ve been the only real thing brought back. Along with the, you know…” He looked uncomfortable. “The meat.” He shrugged and tensed his shoulders, trying to look tough and unbothered by what his King had fed him. Sera’s heart ached in sympathy for the kid. “Um, we take our flyers out. That’s how we go.”

“You take your…?” Sera closed her eye thinking about the hair-raising trip she’d had on one of those things and the terror and anxiety she had felt clinging to the back of the vessels Wes and his buddies had captured as they rocketed through hyperspace.  _ Fuck’s sake… _ “Okay, so would it be okay if I looked at the map on your flyer?”

The kid looked confused. “We don’t get given maps. Old Man just gives the group leader a direction and we follow him. At least, that’s what the others say.”

“Wow!”  _ Not even telling your followers where they’re going? Paranoid much? _

“I don’t care about that!” Inabi said, managing to sound like she was yelling while still keeping her voice down. “Why can’t we come with too?”

“Because it isn’t a good place for girls, okay?”

“But it’s okay for a tiny baby?”

“Yeah, Mitri. How come it’s okay for Nadi and not for us?”

“Because, because…” Mitri looked to her for help.

“Maybe next time, kids,” she said, feeling a little bit dirty about excluding the two girls from something that she felt comfortable involving herself in.

Inabi pouted, tears brimming in her eyes, and ran back to the bedroom. Lana gave Mitri and her a pointed look and followed her younger sister. Mitri shuffled his feet, looking ashamed of himself, then grabbed Sera by the arm and tugged her out the front door.

“Hey,” Sera said, poking him in the arm. “You don’t want to say goodbye to your mother before we go?”

He looked as though he was going to ignore her for a moment. Then he dropped her arm and ran back inside, leaving her looking at the muddy night sky, not a star in sight, their lunar destination hanging grubby and red above her. She rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath and released it while she waited. The tubers were sitting uneasily in her stomach but she felt more or less rested. A little tired, probably from her body drawing on the Force to heal itself, but nothing she wasn’t used to. Not long after, Mitri emerged from his home, surreptitiously wiping at his face and slinging a bag over his shoulder that he hadn’t arrived with. He led her quickly and quietly through the village, avoiding puddles and tools leaning precariously against fences with practised ease. Then they trekked a decent distance across open land, dirt frozen and barren beneath their feet, until they reached his flyer hiding in a shallow hollow. He handed her some more of the gross industrial goop to slather all over herself, as well as a spacesuit that she thought might be the one she came down in earlier that day. She suited up and they were off, back to the greasy trash moon, her only hope of escape.


	6. Chapter 6

The Old Man, or Sandri, or the King, or whatever he was calling himself, was lounging on his throne when they found him. He was all alone, sipping from his polished cup as the dim light from a flickering lamp cast odd shadows across his face.

“So, you’re back, criminal. Come to beg for forgiveness after your little display earlier?”

Sera frowned. “No? You sent Mitri to come get me.”  _ Is he drunk? _

“Oh, that’s right.” He sat up straighter and glared at Sera. “You fight pretty good, criminal, even if you choke at the end. What say you join my crew up here and I’ll forget all about how you disrespected me in front of everyone?”

Sera raised an eyebrow. “Counteroffer,” she said, lacing her words with a touch of the Force to make them sweeter. “You give me the use of one of your flyers and I’ll be out of your hair once I find a way home. Deal?”

His eyes gleamed. “Do you have a destination in mind for my flyers, criminal?”

“Well… Well, no. But we can’t be too far off--”

“No destination, no flyers!”

“Okay. Well, what if we use Vlasi Zhaoffedov’s, I think his name was, comm to--”

Sandri waved his hand dismissively. “He doesn’t have a comm! And even if he did, I’m not asking that old creep for anything!”

Sera chewed her lip, her mind racing.  _ Fuck. _ “Okay… Okay, well, what if we…” Sera closed her eye, trying to recall what the galactic map looked like. “What if we make a, like a comm beacon or a radio telescope? We don’t even need to send out a powerful enough signal to be picked up by anyone. If we can detect signals from other systems, we should be able to plot a heading to send a team out.”

“You can make this beacon, criminal?” Sandri said, filling his cup with an unsteady hand.

“Yeah, I think I can,” Sera said, her stomach churning.  _ Can’t be that hard, can it? _ “We might need to clear some of the debris in the system--”

Sandri snarled, a wild look in his eyes. “Nobody touches any of that debris unless I say so! Do you hear me?”

“Okay, but it’s going to interfere--”

“ _ I _ control this system!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled, his cup sloshing over as he stabbed himself in the chest with a finger. “ _ I _ get to say who gets to come and go! No one else!”

Sera held up her hands in a placating gesture, sweat rolling down her forehead at his outburst as she radiated as much calming energy as she could find in herself. She could feel Mitri trembling next to her, telling her that, no, she wasn’t over-reacting to the danger this unstable teenager presented.

“It’s all okay,” she said as calmly and neutrally as possible, her head aching dully from overextending her use of the Force. “Nobody needs to make any decisions yet.”

Sandri subsided, sweat dampening his dark fur.

“You make your beacon, criminal,” he said. “And when you find something  _ then _ you can take one of the flyers. But don’t even think about touching anything without my permission. You’re part of us now, whether you like us or not,” he said, pointing to something scratched into the golden slab behind him. “And we will  _ never _ forget what you did.”

Sera’s stomach churned. She peered at the golden slab, trying in vain to read what had been written on it in the dim light. What did they know?

“Now, get out of here before I change my mind and decide to kill you both instead!”

“Thank you for your kind permission,” Sera said as she grabbed Mitri by the shoulder and pulled him away from Sandri as quickly and calmly as was humanly possible. She rolled her shoulders, trying to rid herself of the tension that had settled between them. What did they know about her, dammit?

~~~

“So it’s trash all the way through?”

She and Mitri (or Jawbone, as he had asked her to call him while the other kids were around) were suited up, spine-crushing gravity harnesses and everything, as they clambered through unending mounds of frozen garbage.

“Um, kind of, I guess? There’s a broken ship at the center where our base is. Axxx says it’s a lost pirate ship carrying stolen treasure but we haven’t found anything yet.”

_ Explains where the gravity and the atmosphere come from. _ “Ah!” Sera tried and failed to snap her fingers in her bulky gloves. “That’s what the main hall thing is! It’s a fucking effluent tank for a big ass ship! My girlfriend and I have cleaned a few of those out.” Her brain caught up with her words and she instinctively held a hand up to her helmet-covered mouth. “Ah, shit, kid. ‘Scuse my language.”

“S’fine. Um.” He fidgeted, looking wistfully over his shoulder as he had been doing for a while now.

_ I’m slow. _ “You wanna go back and play with your friends?” she said, smiling at the kid.

“Um… It’s just that Bloodkill and The Fear, they’ve come up with a new game they wanted everyone to try and I thought…”

“Don’t you worry, kid,” she said, lips twitching. “You go have fun. Thanks for showing me around.”

He hesitated as though uncertain what he should do. Then he turned and ran off back where they came from, moving much quicker on his own than he’d been able to with Sera in tow. Sera waited until he was out of sight (and comm range) before bursting out laughing.

“Bloodkill!” she growled, flexing dramatically. Then she laughed, letting out a rueful “oh fuck!” when she realized she couldn’t wipe at the tears streaming down her cheek.

Her laughter petered out, dying a pathetic death in the solitude of her helmet. Over her comm there was nothing but lifeless static, inviting a lonely twinge in her stomach. She flopped her arms around limply, feeling silly and awkward standing all on her own in the middle of a trash heap, the impersonal void of space yawning empty and desolate above her.

“Right,” she said into the nothingness, shrugging her shoulders uselessly.

She forced her attention to the particular trash heap she had been led to. Jawbone had said that some of the other kids had found technological waste in this area, broken appliances and computing equipment that they occasionally brought back to their base to futz about with. It didn’t look like much to her. She was struck by a strong wave of uncertainty. What the hell was she doing? Did she really think she’d be able to call aid down from the heavens with whatever pile of crap she was able to cobble together?

Sera smacked herself in the stomach with a gloved fist.

“You’re just feeling weird because your stomach is sore from not eating properly,” she muttered angrily at herself. “Get over yourself and focus!”

Picking a mound at random, she began sorting through it, carefully organizing what she found into different categories of trash at first then just tossing aside everything that didn’t look useful when that took too long. Everything was jumbled together, plastics and metals mixed with food waste and used sanitary products. Thankfully, most of it was frozen on the unprotected surface of the trash moon, only the topmost layer showing any signs of deterioration from exposure to the system’s star. ...Until the pile she was digging through gave way unexpectedly and she pitched forward into a puddle of hot, degraded garbage. Swearing profusely, she checked her suit for any signs of damage, kicking off wet trash that flash froze to her boots as soon as it escaped the reach of its heat source. The surface of the puddle rippled at an impossible angle, remaining fluid while stray droplets froze around i--

“Wah!”

“Argh!”

Sera clutched a hand to her chest, heart threatening to pound out of her rib cage. Acid pointed and laughed at her like she was the funniest thing ever, stomping his feet with delight. He slipped on an ancient grocery bag, falling to the ground with an “oof!” and rolling around giggling in the way only the young can. Sera watched him ruefully, hands on her hips.  _ So much for being immune to sneak attacks. _ She let him have his fun, helping him up when his laughter dissolved into hiccups.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack, kiddo?”

“You jumped! Like…” He mimed her actions, making an exaggerated expression of fright before bursting out into peals of laughter again.

“Okay, okay. You got me.” Sera’s brow furrowed. “What are you doing out here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be planetside with your mom and sisters?”

“I snuck back up when Lazer Eyes came to get Rot!” he said as if that explained everything.

“Okay, but what are you doing out  _ here _ ,” Sera said pointing to the floor, “all on your own? Shouldn’t one of the bigger kids be with you?”

“They’re stupid and busy. I came to tell you that you have to come  _ now _ or you’re going to miss your dinner!”

Sera cocked her head. “Why? Isn’t everyone still playing some game or other?”

“That was ages and ages ago!” Acid said, flapping his hands vigorously in the air to emphasize his point. “We’ve done a million things since then!”

“Huh.” Sera checked her suit’s chrono. It was broken, giving her the impossible time of 38:74. How long had she been out here in the open garbage fields? Her muscles were sore and she was covered in sweat from the day’s exertion. More disturbingly, her suit’s oxygen supply was getting low, lower than she was comfortable with without receiving a warning notification. Were the suit’s sensors broken or had she simply been too focused on her task to notice, potentially stranding herself far from safety with no air to breathe?

Acid grabbed her by the arm and started tugging. “That’s why you have to come  _ now _ before all the food’s gone!”

“Hold on a sec,” Sera said while her arm was busy being pulled out of her socket. “Do you know why that is like that?” she said, pointing at the puddle rippling happily at a sharp incline.

The little boy slumped at her lack of compliance. He looked where she was indicating and shrugged. “Mitri said the gravity and heat’s broken up here. Now come  _ on _ .”

Sera didn’t budge, thinking over the implications of what he’d said. “So the ground might suddenly shift under your feet and trap you? Acid, that’s dangerous. What would your mom say if she knew you were out here on your own?”

“Mama says boys shouldn’t be wimps,” he said mulishly. “Now  _ come on _ .”

“Promise me you won’t wander out onto the garbage fields again without your brother or me with you, okay?” Sera said, refusing to be turned aside.

“‘Kay.”

He turned and dragged her resolutely in the direction of their base without another word. Sera sighed and let him, hoping that she’d impressed upon him the gravity of the situation.

~~~

‘Dinner’ turned out to be some grey shit in a tube. It was okay. Sera gagged a bit when swallowing but it stayed in her stomach where food is meant to stay, so she didn’t hate it. She sucked another stodgy mouthful out of the tube and turned it over in her hands, looking for identifying marks.

“Hey,” she said to the stout kid who had been there when she’d first woken up. She gestured with the half-empty tube. “Where’d you get these things anyway?”

The kid, who went by ‘The Bomb’ it seemed, looked up from where he was prying a metal badge off one of the datapads Sera had brought in.

“Uh, I think Blackshot found a stash of them when excavating one of the lower floors. The Old Man, pardon me,  _ The King _ has them all locked up his quarters where he can stand watch over them day and night and make sure they get portioned out evenly.”

“Hmm.”  _ Emergency rations then. I wonder what kind of crew complement this place had? I wonder how  _ old _ these things are? _ “They’re very gooey,” she said, taking a long sip from her bladder of stale water to wash away the taste from her mouth.  _ Fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a nice, juicy double bean burger right about now. Piled up with sauce and relish with perfectly fried tuber sticks on the side. Hmm, I wonder if I can convince Jawbone and Acid’s mom to fry me up some of those sad tubers they grow here, see if it’ll buck up the flavour. Toss them with salt and spices. A nice big slice of cake would be good too. With ice cream. And a hot cup of caf… Dammit, I shouldn’t be thinking about food! _

“Hey, kid,” she said with a touch of desperation in her voice. “I don’t suppose you would know where I could get some caf to brighten this bullshit water up, now wouldya? Even some tea would help. Just a tiny bit. It wouldn’t need to be much.”

The Bomb just looked at her, snout wrinkling a little in confusion. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what any of those things are.”

Sera clutched her head between her hands, staring in horror at the dirty and broken floor.

“I’m going to die. I’m going to die without ever tasting anything good or flavourful in my miserable life ever again.”

She wrapped her arms around her head and flopped back dramatically, kicking the floor while she thrashed around crying into her arms.

The Bomb patted her sympathetically on the arm. “There, there.”

She stilled, letting her arms drop back down as she let out a long sigh. “Dammit.”

Sera pulled herself back to a sitting position and shoved the tube between her teeth, chewing furiously on the end to work the last dregs of paste from it while her stomach gurgled and groaned. She reached for another datapad from the unlooked-at pile to distract herself, missing on her first try, then getting it on the second. The outer casing was bleached nearly white from solar exposure, the plastic crumbling in her hands as she pried it open. The insides looked a little better, although she wasn’t particularly an expert. The battery had leaked a little but not on anything important it seemed.  _ Whether any of it will power on is another matter. _ She worked the faulty battery off the board with her bare hands and a plastisteel shard she’d found on the ground, being careful not to bend or tear anything too much. The battery split as it pulled free, the caustic chemicals returning to their liquid form in the relative warmth of base. Sera snatched her contaminated fingers away, instinctively reaching up to suck them clean, then remembering why that was a bad idea and reaching for her drinking water.

An alarm went off somewhere deep in the base, sounding sick and decrepit.

“Okay, everybody suit up and put your helmets on!” an older boy yelled, clapping to get everyone’s attention in his best drill sergeant impression. “On my mark, I want everyone to move - Quickly! - to the assembly area in the main hall.”

“That normal?” Sera said quietly to The Bomb, holding her burning fingers away from her body while she looked for where she’d put her helmet.

The Bomb made a noncommittal noise and waggled his hand in the air, not looking particularly worried.

The alarm sputtered to silence, making an elongated braying sound like a dying animal. There was a few moment’s silence where nobody moved.

“Alright, false alarm! The reactor successfully vented its heat!”

Everybody relaxed and resumed chatting and playing as if nothing had happened. Sera turned her attention to her injured fingers, rinsing the chemicals off with her drinking water.

“Uh, you know anywhere I can clean up?” she said, keeping an eye on where the battery had fallen and mentally redirecting stray water droplets away from the highly reactive metal. “Maybe go for a shower to get all the muck off?”

“That’s all the clean water you get for a day,” the kid said, indicating the water she was busy spilling all over the ground.

Sera snapped her hand up, stopping the flow. “You’re kidding!”

He gave her an odd look. “I told you when you asked about an hour ago. Don’t you remember?”

She blinked.  _ Had he really told her earlier? _ “Sorry. Must be more tired than I thought.”

“Hey, Killer! Built your magic tower yet?” one of the older kids yelled in her direction to the great mirth of his comrades.

“Huh?”

“Going to blow us all up next, Killer?” another said, pointing at the smouldering battery at her feet.

Sera felt a tendril of distress piercing her confusion. “Um…”

The Bomb came to her rescue. “Everybody’s saying that you’re an escaped convict that exploded something big to get away. That’s why you survived when everything around you was flattened and dead.”

Sera opened her mouth to refute his claims and froze, excuses lying thick and dishonest on her tongue. Were they even wrong when she’d been covered head to toe in Wes’s blood? Blood that she hadn’t chosen to spill? She felt herself go pale. She may not have caused the destruction of the Sith base directly but did that even matter when she had done so much worse? When she’d shattered whole planets, casting a dark shadow that loomed over the galaxy to this very day?

She shivered and gave no answer. The other kids took this lack of response for confirmation and whooped and hollered their amusement. She hunched over, the weight of her guilt pressing her in on herself while the others laughed and joked at the stain on her soul. Eventually, they got bored and left, off to harass some other luckless asshole. When she finally unbent, her cheeks were wet with tears. It didn’t matter, she told herself as she reached for another datapad. Once she was home, none of it would matter.

~~~

A boy called Scab had three dead older brothers. Sera learned this on her second day there. Or was it the third? The details were a little vague, Sera wasn’t sure if the topic was still too sensitive for the kid or if he was simply too young to have been aware of everything that had happened in the first place, but it seemed to have involved Sandri in some way. A lot of the boys had dead older brothers all seeming to involve the same mythic event. There was an air of mystique about the boy they called King and Sera couldn’t decide if they were more afraid or in awe of him. No matter how many times he raged in a drunken fit or bullied the younger boys, smashing through the living quarters to yell at a kid for some perceived transgression, they always looked at him with respect, followed his every word. And no matter how many times he laughed and joked with them, no matter how many times he grinned with pride when one of them called him ‘Old Man’, there was always a glimmer of fear in their eyes when he was around. Like being in a cage with a wild animal.

This reflected glory did not fall upon his second-in-command, his War Leader. There was some complicated drama there that Sera didn’t fully understand but none of the others really talked about it. Probably because they all knew whatever the deal was already and thought it was all thoroughly pedestrian and obvious. Like saying that the sky was blue. Or a muddy grey in their home planet’s case. The kid was serious and strict, seeming uncomfortable in their own skin sometimes, but was also quick-witted and organised, which earned him a degree of derisive respect from the older boys that made up Sandri’s inner circle.

His standing was helped by his close friendship with the Big One who followed him around everywhere and got on well with the bigger, stronger boys, being a big, strong boy himself. Who also happened to be Acid and Jawbone’s cousin.

“Eh?” Sera said in surprise, her hand stuck up the butt of an ancient holoprojector of unknown design and make. Her eyesocket was itching up a storm. Her muscles were tired and sore. She needed a shower. The lightly damp rag of questionable cleanliness that she’d been using in the frigid privacy of the janitor’s closet that functioned as her sleeping quarters only helped so much. The freshly pooped turd that had been left outside the door by some mischievous child (judging by the squeals of delight when she’d stepped in it) hadn’t helped either. She’d spoken to Sandri about it but he’d only slapped her on the back and asked her if she couldn’t take a joke. It seemed to have solidified her reputation as ‘an old person’.

Jawbone looked a little embarrassed but Acid, back out on the trash fields despite her and his brother’s protests, leaned forward on top of a gutted fridge with a sunny smile, kicking his booted feet behind him.

“That means we’re siblings!”

“That means our  _ parents _ are siblings,” Jawbone corrected. “Our mom’s brother married Reaper’s dad’s sister who was Meat Head’s mom before she died and he married Arav Riaky’s youngest daughter who had Meat Head’s baby brother.”

“That the old bugger I met at your mom’s dinner that night?” she said, head swimming with names.

“Uh… Uh-uh. That must have been Arav Atov who owns the water pump sheds. Arav Riaky has his own stills but he doesn’t come ‘round anymore because, I don’t know, I think he and mom had a fight or something.”

“Huh,” she said, working a clip from its setting. “I would never have guessed. You and him look nothing alike. Uh, no offense.”

“None taken,” the kid said with a smile.

Acid slapped his hands against the fridge. “I heard Papa tell Mama that he wonders if we really are his children sometimes the way she carries on!” he said far too cheerfully.

Sera stared in horror. “Uh…”

Jawbone took his little brother by the shoulder. “We’re related to Meat Head by our  _ mom _ . It wouldn’t matter who our dad was.”

“And then! And then!” Acid said, clearly liking the attention. “ _ She _ said it’s any wonder that half the village aren’t his children the way he can’t keep his p--”

“Argh! Didn’t Jackhammer say that he’d show you, Shiv and Icepick how he spits real far?” Jawbone said desperately, bright pink beneath his fur as he hustled his little brother away.

“Why do  _ they  _ get to learn as well?” the little boy whined, all thought of parental infidelity forgotten.

“It’s fine! I know you’ll be able to show them up!” Jawbone glanced over his shoulder and shrugged apologetically before the two brothers disappeared behind a small hill of frozen food waste.

Sera snapped her jaw shut, then let out a disbelieving breath. “Fuuuuck…”  _ How do I respond to that! _ Should she have told the boys that wasn’t normal? Should she have been supportive or ignored what Acid said altogether or what? “Fuck’s sake!”

She shook herself and filed the problem away to be dealt with some other day. First she had to get this stupid receiver unit free from its stupid bracket. She still had no other tools than her plastisteel shard. Either there were no tools of any kind on this trash heap of a moon or the kids were guarding what they did have pretty jealously. So she was going to have to source her own tools or tool-shaped objects. Which she would. When she had time. Brute force would work just fine for now.

Her plan to assemble a mostly functioning datapad and connect it to a really big antenna hadn’t been as successful as it could have been. She told herself that this was fine. It was only her first and simplest plan and she had plenty more tricks up her sleeves. Besides, she could always iterate on the idea at a later date. But it had still been a blow, disappointment sitting heavily in her stomach when she’d switched her cobbled together datapad on expecting to pick up nearby signals and getting nothing. It should have worked. If this system was just a short distance away from one of the quieter spacelanes as she suspected, she should have been able to pick up transmissions between trading vessels if nothing else. And she couldn’t even tell if she’d constructed her makeshift comm correctly. What if they were out there, waiting to rescue her, and she couldn’t reach out because she’d miscalculated how much power her device needed? Or a part wasn’t as functional as she thought it was and she was listening to a deaf comm, waiting for some miracle?

So she’d changed tack. Juhani always said she was a dependable teammate and she wasn’t going to let her team down now! Even if her team currently only consisted of herself and Bastila. Her heart twinged painfully and she had to stop for the moment, closing her eye and letting her helmet rest against the pocked and rusted shell of the holoprojector. She missed Bastila so damned much. Even though for her it had only been… days? Weeks? Sera felt her gaze drift to an indeterminate point in the sky. How was she? What was she doing at this instant? Was she missing Sera as much as Sera missed her or had her affection started to fade with Sera’s absence? Would she even still want Sera with a great big hole in her hea--

Sera stopped herself, squeezing her eye tightly shut until she could focus again. This wasn’t the time or the place. She had to get home first! Then she could-- She had to get home. Forcing herself upright, she turned her attention to working the receiver free from inside the holoprojector. Datapads were only designed to send and receive signals over a relatively short range. Planetary scale. Occasionally on a system scale, if you got lucky. Holoprojectors had more robust internal radios, designed to pick up signals from relays all over the sector. A broader spectrum of signals too. If she could make an antenna, or maybe a dish, to catch anything passing their way… Then she just had to build and calibrate a computing unit to interpret the signals, maybe write some software for it, figure out what direction to point her telescope in to not miss her hoped-for target by several parsecs… It was going great! It was going to be great!

~~~

There was a tiny pocket of gravity and atmosphere several kilometers from the main gravitational cluster that the kids used as their base by Sera’s reckoning. It was a little smaller than she liked without Bastila in her ear distracting her from how low the ceiling was and how close the walls were but it would make the perfect site for her telescope. Once she cleared a space for a platform and found the signal booster that she needed and…

Sera ripped her helmet off and wailed into the frozen air.

“This is taking too long!”

~~~

The grey stuff ran out. Or maybe they just weren’t giving her any anymore. Sera told herself she didn’t care. It tasted like shit anyway and didn’t fill her up properly. But her empty stomach growled and ached and she was forced to scrounge for scraps in the trash fields while the boys brought back precious morsels from their raids. Not that anyone had enough to eat. When she’d first got here weeks ago (or was it now months… fuck, how long had it been?), she would have presumed that the older boys, the elites among the elites who all stood over those toiling on the planet below, would take the larger portion for themselves and leave the smaller kids to fight over what was left. But if they did so, there was no evidence of it. Big and small alike complained of hollow bellies and half-remembered feasts with their families.

“Fried tripe. With a nice fat blood sausage on the side. That’s what I want.”

Sera stuck her tongue out in disgust. She was sat in her spacesuit in the main hall area mending a tear in her jumpsuit. She would have been happy to be elsewhere, working on data processing software for her telescope, but the needle was borrowed and the owner didn’t trust her to take it too far away. Besides, she was lonely.

The kid slapped his friend next to him. “Hey, Lazer Eyes. Remind me to steal a salish next time we go down.”

“Who’s going to cook it for you?” Lazer Eyes asked. “You gonna be gnawing on raw meat when we get it back here?”

“I’ll have to steal your mom to cook and clean for me too. Hey, Killer!”

Sera levelled a flat look at him. “Don’t call me that.” The effect was ruined when she jumped as the needle stabbed into the pad of her thumb. Again.

The kid waved her objection aside. “What are you hoping for on the next raid?”

“Yeah, what kind of treasures keep a murderous lunatic up at night?” Lazer Eyes said laughing.

Sera scowled at her mangled jumpsuit, seam pricked with blood, a deep ache of longing consuming her. Dammit, she wanted to be near Bastila again! To tease her, to laugh with her, to argue over silly and not-so-silly things with her. _To have her naked on my lap, writhing and moaning against me while I finger her until she comes._ _Fuck, now I’m horny!_

A thought struck her. “Ah!”

Two pairs of eyes looked at her with alarm. “What?”

She stared at both boys intently as thoughts and plans fell together in her mind, hands numb with the cold grasping at the air as if to hold her ideas in place.

“Your flyers! You salvaged the hyperdrives and engines from abandoned equipment left in the main hold of this abandoned ship.” Her fingers tightened urgently in the nothingness. “What if! What if I use the comms station of this very ship to get a message out!”  _ I knew I got my best ideas when I’m horny and tired! _

“It’ll be the same as the last five times you asked,” Demon said, contempt curling around the edges of his snout. “We don’t know where the bridge is. Most of the ship has collapsed. You would have to dig straight down through all the trash and piss and shit to even have a hope of finding the command sections!”

Sera hunched her shoulders tight in on herself, feeling disappointed and angry with herself.

“Don’t remember asking you  _ five _ times,” she muttered, reaching for her cobbled together datapad. “Maybe three or two…” She opened the only thing she was certain worked on the datapad, a long plaintext document, and made a note of her idea and Demon’s rebuttal, so she wouldn’t forget at the end. Then she tapped the return key a couple of times and typed:

> miss bastila :(

She saved her changes and put the device into sleep mode to save power, sighing as she did so. She blew on her hands and chafed them together to warm them up. One of the generator’s had blown a fuse earlier that week and they were back to charging their battery bank with people power, taking turns in a large rattling wheel to generate electricity. Several of the kids complained that it was like being back home.

“What about The Old Man’s treasure room?” Lazer Eyes said, scratching lazily at his stomach.

“That’s just a rumor. Nobody cares about that.”

“Wonder what he’s got stashed in there,” he continued, undeterred. “Bet he’s got a whole store of food there all for himself. Man, I’d love to get a taste of some of the weird crap he must have come across in his travels. Just to get my hands on something sweet again!” He mimed taking a massive bite out of some imaginary treat.

“Sweet things are overrated,” Demon said disinterestedly.

“My girlfriend makes this chocolate…”  _ Body paint. _ “Sauce,” Sera interjected. “Uh, for, like, ice cream and stuff? Absolutely amazing! She has some secret ingredient that she puts in it that I’ve never been able to get out of her.”  _ No matter how many times I hold her down and try to tickle her into submission. _ She let her head fall back and sighed, remembering the last time they’d brought it out the back of the fridge. “What I wouldn’t give to taste that again.”

_ Sera pulled against her restraints, wriggling as Bastila’s tongue licked slow circles around her nipple, cleaning the sweet brown sauce from her skin. _

_ “Hey!” Sera said a little breathlessly, tugging her wrists in a different direction to see if that would work. “If you’re gonna torture me, at least gimme a taste!” _

_ Bastila took Sera’s nipple into her mouth, sucking and biting gently down until Sera moaned and bucked her hips under her girlfriend’s weight. Then Bastila released her nipple with a pop and sat back, leaving lipstick kisses all over Sera’s breast. _

_ “Now, now, dear. There’s no need to lose your temper,” she said, wiping her mouth clean with a delicate finger. Her hair was down and she was dressed in light, airy pants that stopped just below the knee and a shirt of pale mauve that opened in the front that Sera knew from experience could easily be pulled aside to reveal the soft breasts within. She was struck by the sheer beauty of this woman who chose to put up with her, her elegant poise, her wicked, if dorky, sense of humour. Not for the first time, Sera wondered how she had gotten so lucky to have Bastila Shan in her life. _

_ Bastila reached out and patted Sera’s cheek, running an affectionate thumb over her lips. A shudder ran through her as Bastila pulled down gently on her lower lip, slipping her thumb into Sera’s mouth. Sera did her best to resist Bastila’s seduction but in the end, it was a losing battle and she sucked at her lover’s hand greedily, betraying her need. She whimpered pathetically when Bastila pulled her thumb free. _

_ “Don’t worry, darling,” Bastila continued with a smirk. “You’ll get yours when I’m good and ready.” _

_ Sera growled, frustrated arousal throbbing in her groin. Bastila simply smiled serenely, settling back on Sera’s decidedly unclothed frame. She wiggled her bottom cheekily against Sera’s crotch and reached for the jar on the nightstand, casually stirring its contents while Sera fought with the sturdy cuffs chaining her to the headboard. For all her demure smiles and untroubled brow, Sera could feel the heat radiating from between her girlfriend’s legs. And she wanted a piece of it, dammit. _

_ Bastila scooped a generous spoonful out of the jar and presented it to Sera. _

_ “Open wide.” _

_ Sera snarled but opened her mouth dutifully, sticking her tongue out to catch any falling droplets of chocolate. Bastila moved the spoon towards Sera’s mouth, tipping it at the last second and spilling sauce all over Sera’s chin and neck. _

_ “Oh no! Look at the mess you’ve made!” Bastila said with poorly masked glee, spreading the chocolate sauce over Sera’s collarbones and chest with the back of the spoon. “Oh dear. I can’t take you anywhere, can I, darling?” _

_ “Just you wait until I get out of these cuffs, woman,” Sera snapped, hips bucking upward seeking release. “See what I’ll do to you then!”  _ Gonna strip you naked and kiss you all over, make you come in my mouth ‘til you know what you mean to me.

_ Bastila chuckled as she bent down, licking and nibbling her way up Sera’s neck, not leaving a single drop behind. _

_ “Promises, promises,” she whispered into Sera’s ear before claiming her lips for her own. _

Sera huffed out a massive sigh, staring up at the distant ceiling. She had taken matters into her own hands, so to speak, once she had figured out how to lock her tiny janitor’s closet. But her own hand was a pale imitation of having her girlfriend’s naked body pressed against her own.

“Do you know what it’s talking about?” Lazer Eyes muttered to Demon.

“Going on about it’s supposed girlfriend again,” Demon replied. He turned to Sera. “We know! You’ve told us already!”

Sera pointed a resolute finger in his direction. “And I’ll tell you again! Because she’s great! And I miss her! Aaargh!”

She flopped her arms over her head, whining and kicking her heels petulantly against the floor. A savage hand caught her in the back of the head and she tipped forward sharply.

“What the fuck are you doing eating my food and drinking my water without offering me anything in return?” a voice roared into her ear. Apparently, ‘Angry Sandri’ was making an appearance today.

“I’m not doing nothing,” Sera protested, rubbing her head. “I’m fixing my jumpsuit, so I can get back to making you a telescope. Ow!”

“I don’t give a fuck about that!” he yelled, eyes flashing. “Go down there and get some food from the village before I decide to have  _ you _ for dinner!”

Then he stormed off as swiftly as he had arrived, raging at his underlings as he went, smashing anything within his reach.

“That boy needs to go to an anger management class,” Sera muttered. “Okay, I’m guessing trading goods and services for what we need is off the table.”

This earned her a withering look.

She sighed. “Alright,  _ fine _ . Even though trading and cooperation are the bedrock of civilisation, I’ll have you know,” she finished under her breath. “Am I going alone or does anyone feel like coming with?”

“It’s a  _ raid _ , Killer, not a day at the races,” Demon said derisively.

“Yeah, how’re you going to carry everything with those skinny arms of yours?” his friend said with a hearty guffaw.

“Don’t call me that!” Sera growled out.

Demon pulled himself up to his full height, looming menacingly over Sera.

“What are you going to do about it,  _ Killer _ ? Are you going to beat me into a pulp to get me to stop?”

Sera snarled and hunched her shoulders unhappily, the thought of raising her hand against a fourteen-year-old, against  _ anyone _ , making her sick to the stomach, making her want to tear the flesh off her bones.

“Aw, leave it.” Lazer Eyes yawned as he patted his friend on the back, his mouth a great maw of teeth and tongue. “You two can fight it out later when we’ve all eaten. Now let’s  _ go _ . I want my salish.”

Demon puffed his chest out threateningly, staring her down, then pushed past her with a sharp shove of his elbow. Lazer Eyes followed more calmly, although he didn’t spare Sera even the smallest glance. Sera tied off her thread as best as she could and gathered her things.  _ What an absolutely fucking fantastic start to an operation. _

~~~

They gathered at the lower edge of the base’s gravity where the flyers were kept. It turned out they could only take three flyers for a raid. Who knew why. King’s orders, apparently. Since Sera didn’t have a flyer (more specifically, wasn’t  _ trusted  _ with one), she had been forced to ask around for a ride. Hadn’t that been a lesson in humility. Sera didn’t think she’d been told ‘no’ so many times in her life. It had been the War Leader who had finally said yes, agreeing more readily than Sera had expected. He was standing apart from the rest of them, making his own preparations.

A small body thumped into her from behind, then ran away shrieking with laughter before Sera had time to react. Shiv and Icepick, two of the youngest boys, tore around the staging area, generally making nuisances of themselves. It had been Sera’s idea that they take some of the smallest kids with them in the unspoken hope that they stay planetside and get a proper meal. She did her best to convince herself that she wasn’t regretting this idea.

Lazer Eyes sighed. “We should get some girls up here.”

“Ha! Maybe we can get Meat Head to share his faggot with us,” Demon said, tugging his boots on tighter.

Jawbone appeared from around the back entrance to the base looking a little harried. He turned his head this way and that, eyes searching every inch of the space.

He caught Sera’s eye. “Have you seen Acid?”

“Not today I haven’t,” she said slowly, sifting through her memory. “Oh, wait! I think I might have seen him pestering Insanity to tell him a story.”

“That was yesterday,” Demon said flatly.

“Oh.” Sera scratched the back of her head, cheeks heating in embarrassment. “Then, no, I haven’t seen him today. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I just…” His mouth was tight with frustration. “I wanted to send him down with you and now he’s run off where I can’t find him.”

“Do you want us to wait until you find him?”

“We don’t wait for no brats!” Demon interrupted sharply. “We go when the Old Man says we go and he says we go now!”

Sera tensed. Was this worth making a thing out of? She opened her mouth.

Jawbone decided the matter for her. “He can go down on the next raid. I’m tired of him thinking he can play around as he pleases! I don’t care how much he whines and complains. If he can’t learn to act responsibly, he’s going to stay planetside with the rest of the babies!”

He stomped off, muttering crossly about his little brother. Sera wondered if she should go after him to see if he was okay but Demon was already huffing indignantly and collaring one of the over-excited little boys to ride with him on his flyer. Lazer Eyes got the other one and Sera took up position behind the tight-lipped War Leader, struck by the parallel between the other tiny tag-alongs and her own social standing in the scheme of things.

The trip to the planet’s surface was about as nerve-wracking as the first time she made it. Sera was certain she heard an extra rattle or two from War Leader’s flyer as they entered the atmosphere.

“You sure you don’t want me to take a look at it?” Sera said as she clambered off the flyer. “I’d only be tightening a few scr-- Holy fuck! Look at the sky!”

It was a thick, orangey-red, the heavy, dusty air dampening and muting everything around them like a nightmare.

Her companions looked distressingly unperturbed.

“It’s thoroughly normal, bog-standard summer sky, Killer,” Demon said, rolling his eyes.

“ _ This _ is summer?” Sera took note of her body shivering within her double layer of jumpsuit and spacesuit. “How can you tell?”

Demon stripped down to his worn trousers, muttering something that sounded like “wuss” as he turned away. Sera shrugged and straightened her shoulders, pulling her eye away from the murderous sky above.

“Okay,” she said in a firmer tone, circling her finger in the air to gather them all to her. “Let’s go over the plan to get in, get what we need and get out without any unnecessary mess or fuss. Understand?”

“Whatever.” Demon flapped a disinterested hand over his shoulder as he slouched off.

“Hey!”

A small foot to her backside stopped her from getting any further. She whirled around to see Icepick running away, laughing at his own cleverness.

“Come on, that wasn’t very nice!”

“I just want my salish,” Lazer Eyes said, leaving her to her predicament.

“Eat shit, Killer!” Shiv yelled defiantly as he lobbed a clod of dirt at her head.

She pulled her head to the side, her reflexes having not completely abandoned her. Her physical conditioning apparently had however and she got an earful of dirt.

“Please don’t call me that,” she said as evenly as possible, her temper frayed.

“ _ Please don’t call me that _ ,” Shiv repeated back mockingly.

“Killer, Killer, Killer!” Icepick sang as he danced in a taunting ring around her.

“I said don’t call me that!” she snapped.

They squealed and ran off gaily, more entertained than frightened. War Leader shouldered his empty pack and walked up to her.

“I have business of my own.” He stabbed a hard finger into her chest. “ _ Don’t _ get in my way.”

Then he disappeared off in his own direction and Sera was left standing all alone like an asshole.

“Fuck!”

Sera scrubbed at her face, avoiding her empty eyesocket by traumatized reflex, the frustration and annoyance bubbling within her making her need to move or else explode. She let out a huff, then kicked the dirt and yelled inarticulately into her hands. Finally, she let her hands fall and she leaned against War Leader’s flyer.

“Fuck’s sake,” she said softly. Why couldn’t she keep her temper around a bunch of kids? Why did she fuck everything up  _ constantly _ ? Was this what she turned into when put under the teensiest bit of pressure? She bent forward, banging her head against the still-hot flyer.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

It didn’t help. She was still disappointed in herself. There was nothing else to do but bear the burden of her shame and failure and continue on. Strive to be less of a fuckup in the future. She grabbed her own empty pack, checked her datapad for what she needed to get and set off on the trail to the village.

The sun was just setting when she got there, glowering red of the sky giving way to dusty grey. Sera could feel the fog of pollution settling into her skin, her eye, her mouth. The air tasted foul and Sera wished she had thought to bring a rag to tie over her face. Her stomach grumbled, empty and hungry. There was a dull, sinusy ache behind her eyes that had steadily increased over her time in this wretched system. It tended to flare whenever she drew on the Force to perform some minor task or draw some part just within her reach, not unlike she was overextending herself. Leading her to suspect that the scraps that she scavenged weren’t enough to meet her body’s needs and she was using the Force to sustain herself.  _ Like a fucking monk. _ And her skin itched all over. But that was just a rash from her radiation gel.

To her surprise, there were still people about in the village, hither and thithering as though the pollution were no bother.  _ Maybe the whiskers help to filter it. Or they just have stronger lungs than I do. _ That was… fine. She could sneak around a settlement that she was unfamiliar with, with people she didn’t know. At least they weren’t likely to kill her. Probably.

She proceeded with caution, making a slow circuit around the outskirts of the village to get a feel of the layout. This was impeded by the massive stretch of frigid water bordering one quarter of the village. It was fairly shallow, or seemed to be, and she began slowly wading through, occasionally stopping to detangle her foot from the long irrigation lines or whatever it was that they were pumping in down in between the aquatic vegetation. In the dim twilight, she could just make out the large, lumbering shapes of what she presumed were salish, munching lazily on their evening meal. Two shadowy figures moved amongst them, whispering to each other as they fought to coax one of the plump beasts from the safety of the herd. They stilled when they heard her approach.

“Fuck off!” Demon whispered harshly, chucking a handful of wet plant matter at her. “Get your own salish!”

“Don’t  _ want _ your fucking salish, twerp,” Sera muttered as she backed away quietly. “Haven’t you been fucking paying attention?”

Rather than retracing her steps all the way to the edge of the lake, Sera cut through the buildings built over the water. The village was a little quieter now and she snuck cautiously into each house, going through her list, spreading the burden of her theft as broadly and thinly as possible. She didn’t even stumble into a rake, catch the rake at the last second before it clattered into some clay pots only to knock a ladder over with her ass and have to run away very quickly before getting caught too many times. The houses were a study of the village and its inhabitants. Painted ceilings seemed to be the trend, all variations on the theme of being underwater looking up at the sky. Some were more stylized, some were a good deal more grubby than Jawbone’s mom’s ceiling that she had woken up under, many needed a touch up, chips of paint and ceiling drifting down on Sera’s head as she inched her way across creaking floorboards. But they all looked up onto a sky that was bluer and fresher,  _ warmer _ than anything she had experienced in this system so far. And she had no idea what any of it meant or if that was just the paint they had.

The rooms and their contents varied as well. Mostly in terms of their upkeep. Size didn’t seem to be an indicator of relative wealth, with the less fortunate residents seemingly relegated to dwellings and buildings with cracked walls and leaking floors and ceilings. Sera didn’t take anything from these houses, closing the door gently and moving onto their neighbours. There were more empty houses than she was expecting as well. Many were dilapidated and completely gutted of anything useful. Those houses didn’t surprise her. The musty smelling ones with furnishings but no one to use them did. Like shrines to dead family members but an entire house rather than a shelf or a single room. It made Sera wonder how many people there truly were on this planet.

She found Jawbone and Acid’s house and considered popping in to say hi to their mom and tell her how they were. But there was a tall man in the house that she presumed was the kids’ father and thought it better not to interfere. Not-Quite-Doctor Shuko was snoring in a worn chair. Sera got what she needed and tiptoed out quietly without disturbing him. There was one house with electronics and other hardware labelled and stacked neatly on shelves floor to ceiling… and a pervasive sense of dread and violence dripping off the walls. Sera grabbed what looked the most useful and got the fuck out of there. Then doubled back, cursing at her own cowardice, and snooped around the house as quietly as she was able, only leaving when she found nothing untoward besides the horror gripping her heart. Shaken and more than a little upset, she moved on, making a note to ask around about the house.

She heard voices when she entered the next house. Turning to go, she paused when she recognized one of the voices. Curiosity getting the better of her (Bastila would have called it nosiness), Sera inched closer, getting down onto her haunches and peaking into the next room. War Leader was standing, hands held tightly behind his back, in front of a small woman reclining on an old couch.

“...then Yeniil and me got a few of the younger kids to help out with moving our bigger water tank to a more stable position,” the kid said. “It was more complicated than I thought it would be with the weight of all that water and keeping it clean but we figured out a system where we could line our barrels up and pour the water between them one at a time and make it so even the littlest kid could help out. We didn’t even lose all that much water in the move and now our tank isn’t at risk of cracking from all the gravity shifts.”

He paused to take a breath, face bright with pride in his own accomplishment. Sera realized with a start that the woman was focused more on the threadbare blanket over her knees than the child standing before her. Scraps of nonsense floated out of her lips as she picked at the blanket, eyes following her own hands as though they belonged to another. War Leader’s face fell for a split second before being plastered over with a forced cheerfulness.

“Uh, anyway, we, uh, we had a problem with one of the pipes that brings air into the sleeping quarters,” he said, twisting and clenching his hands behind his back. “It was fine. Everyone woke up with a headache but Vasi was able to clear the blockage before anyone collapsed this time. Um.”

Sera eased away from the door, feeling like shit for snooping on the kid’s misery. Her heart ached, wondering how lonely he must be.

“What are you doing here, you little shit?” a masculine voice demanded.

Sera flinched, so lost in her own thoughts that she’d stopped paying attention to her surroundings. But the voice wasn’t an angry homeowner come to wreak vengeance on an intruder.

“I wasn’t doing anything. I was just--”

“Don’t give me any of your excuses,  _ brat _ . How many times have I told you that bastards aren’t welcome in my house?”

“I’m not making excuses,” War Leader pleaded. “I only wanted to see Mom, nothing more!”

“Who are you to think you can see my daughter without my permission? After the way you repaid me for feeding and clothing you? For giving you a roof over your head?  _ Stand up straight when I’m talking to you, boy! Do I need to get my belt to remind you how to be a man? _ ”

There was no sound for the moment save for War Leader choking back sobs. Sera froze halfway between crouching and standing, torn over whether intervening now would only make things worse for the kid.

The older man spat. “I should have smothered you in your sleep. I should have made Lenta have an abortion. Get out of my sight, you simpering whelp.”

Sera’s brain kicked back into operation, telling her that she needed to move. But it was too late. War Leader crashed through the door and froze, staring wide-eyed at Sera as tears streamed down his face. A series of emotions played across his face in rapid succession: shock, fear, confusion, shame, anger. Sera opened her mouth to tell him that it was okay and that he hadn’t done anything wrong when the turmoil settled into a mask of cold fury and he stormed out of the house that was his home. Sera hurried after him, heedless of the noise she was making.

War Leader was stalking away from the house, hunched shouldered and radiating spiky, unhappy energy. Sera trotted to catch up, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. He whirled around, swinging his fist in a savage backhanded arc.

Sera stumbled back. She raised her hands placatingly. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

“You didn’t see  _ anything _ , do you understand me?” he snarled, tension coiled in his body like a cornered animal.

Sera felt tears running down her cheek. “Kid,  _ none _ of this is your fau--”

“I don’t want to hear any of it! You go and get the others,” he stabbed a finger in the direction of the village center, “before I decide to leave you down here to rot!”

“Okay, but I really think we should talk--”

He was gone before she could get any further, an angry cloud of pain disappearing into the cluster of unknown buildings. Sera ran a hand through her short crop of hair, then held it over her mouth and wept, shoulders shaking in grief for a lonely, miserable kid.

She allowed herself a moment, then took a deep breath and shook herself. Now to find the others and get everyone home safe and sound. She scanned her surroundings, looking for any sign of Demon, Lazer Eyes or the two smaller boys. Spotting movement in the distance, she strode forward to see Icepick running into a house by the lake. She followed him in, catching the door just before it slammed shut.

He was already waist-deep into a pantry cupboard, scratching around noisily and throwing things into a sack. Sera knelt down and rapped her knuckles gently on the cupboard door, making him jump and bump his head.

“Come on, time to go,” she said softly, mindful of not disturbing the house’s owner.

Icepick popped out from inside the cupboard with a face like thunder, rubbing the back of his head.

“You can’t tell me what to do!” he whispered harshly before running away.

“Hey!” Sera grabbed for him but missed, flopping heavily onto the hard floor, thin jumpsuit providing no cushioning whatsoever. “Oh, fuck, my bones!”

She clambered up, massaging her poor bruised body and following the sound of young feet thumping through the house.

Shiv came wandering out of a storage room, seemingly drawn by the sound of his brother’s passage.

“Did you get all of the…”

He trailed off, eyes becoming wide when he saw Sera standing over him. His eyes darted to the side, then he picked up his sack and ran, narrowly escaping Sera’s grasp.

“Get back here!” she whispered furiously. “It’s time to go!”

The only response she received was a high-pitched “Fuck you!” before the little boy disappeared further into the house. Sera threw up her hands and followed at a slower pace, feeling a million years too old for this. The next room was a long, low space that must have once served as an entertainment area for a large family but was now only furnished with a couch and armchair that looked like they had not been touched in years and a desk and chair that did. The desk was tidy, with nothing on it save for a small lamp, a lush potted plant atop a pristine doily, a few writing implements, and a neat stack of flimsi in a folder. There was a filing cabinet tucked into the corner behind the desk out of the way of traffic. Sera looked at it curiously as she wandered forward, then jumped when a hard finger poked her in the back. She whirled around to find Demon giving her a filthy look.

“You’re supposed to be collecting supplies, not wandering around like a tourist!” he said in a low voice. “What are you doing here?”

Sera relaxed, letting her hands fall to her sides. “I was trying to get the two kids but they won’t--”

Lazer Eyes appeared from behind his friend smelling like blood and offal. He peered at her in the murk.

“Shit, man, have you been crying?” He started laughing, low enough to escape detection by vigilant ears but loud enough to prove his point.

Demon snorted. “Yeah, what happened? Did an animal look at you wrong and hurt your feewings?”

“Did your imaginary girlfriend break up with you?” Lazer Eyes muffled his guffaws with one hand and slapped Demon on the shoulder with the other.

“I stubbed my toe,” she said tersely. “Now, can we  _ please _ wrangle these kids?”

“We’ll get them,” Demon said, doing his best ‘threatening thug’ impression. “So long as you stay right here and don’t get in our way.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want you to cry all over them,” Lazer Eyes chuckled, still impressed by that joke.

Sera rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut. They strode off, the floorboards shaking under their less than careful footfalls. Tired in more ways than one, Sera slumped into the chair by the desk, stretching her weary legs out as she waited. Her eyes fell on the folder in front of her. It seemed to have a label on it that she couldn’t quite make out in the gloom. She contemplated switching the lamp on but she had learned the hard way that the overburdened power inverters that these folk tended to use made an unearthly racket after a full day of heavy use. Curiosity getting the better of her, Sera lifted the cover of the folder up with one finger and peeked inside. Didn’t look like someone’s sketch pad or the first draft of their opus about the Ductavis Era told solely through erotic poetry.  _ Bummer. _

One of the twins shot past the desk, followed by Lazer Eyes thumping after him towards the pantry. Sera winced and caught hold of the potted plant before it could rattle off the desk.

“Careful,” she said softly.

An eloquent finger was thrust in her direction from the open door. Sera scowled and turned her attention back to the folder, flipping the cover open. The sheets contained within were covered with numbers, long columns of neatly ordered figures filling page after page. At first, she presumed she was snooping on somebody’s accounting records, then she realized the numbers were data entries. She squinted and frowned, bringing the sheets of flimsi up to her face as it dawned on her what was being recorded.  _ That can’t be right. That’s… That’s far too low. _ She flipped through the pages, making sure she was reading the right element, making certain she was reading the values at the correct scale.

Demon strode past her with the other twin trailing after him dolefully, nursing a reddened cheek.

“Got everything?” he said into the hall, not bothering to modulate his voice.

Lazer Eyes popped through the hallway door holding a length of dried sausage in each hand.

“Bro, you should  _ see _ the stuff she’s got back here. We’re gonna clean her out!”

Sera looked up from the stack of flimsi in her hands, mind buzzing with what she’d just read. “I don’t think you should do that.”

“Fuck you,” Lazer Eyes said, waggling a sausage in her direction.

“Yeah, fuck you!” Shiv squeaked, then shrank back wide-eyed when Demon turned a baleful gaze on him.

“We do what we want in this village,” Demon said, pubescent voice low and threatening. “We take what we want when we want. And no outsider gets to say otherwise.”

“All done!” Icepick announced, grunting when Lazer Eyes deposited a heavy sack on his small shoulders.

“I don’t think they can afford--”

The room blazed with light, blinding them all with its suddenness. Sera stumbled out of the chair, feeling something whoosh inches away from her face.

“ _ What are you doing in my house, you thieving animals? _ ”

Sera blinked rapidly to clear her vision. The older woman with the patch of pure white fur running down her neck, Anasha, stood in the other door to the room wearing a faded nightgown clutching a very big stick in both hands. The boys yelped and scrambled over each other to reach the exit, shaking the floorboards in their haste. Sera watched as the potted plant slipped off the desk. She reached out a hand to catch it but missed and it crashed to the floor, shattering and sending dirt and delicate green leaves everywhere. Anasha’s mouth twisted in grief.

“Little brats, destroying everything you touch! What will be left of our village by the time you’re done?” she demanded, brandishing her stick.

Sera moved to gather the remains of the plant from the floor, only to have to jerk her head out of the way of the swinging cudgel.

“S-sorry,” she said and made a break for it, heart heavy as she ran from the house. Ahead of her, the children howled with adrenaline-fueled laughter into the night, racing with youthful glee to the rendezvous point. They crowed about their success as they bounded onto their flyers, animosity between big and small forgotten in the glow of their shared exploits. Sera said nothing as she mounted a flyer behind an equally subdued War Leader, shoulders hunched in misery.

They spent a silent trip back to the trash moon listening to the others chattering away happily. The flyers had barely touched down when War Leader hopped off and strode quickly away from the group, head held firmly down. Sera pulled her helmet wearily off and rubbed her face.  _ What a disaster. _

Jawbone pushed his way roughly through the crowd of waiting children ready to relieve them of their spoils. He was white as a sheet beneath his fur.

“I can’t find Nadi.”

~~~

Sera didn’t wait to check with Sandri before organizing what kids she could get ahold of into a search party. Leaving the smaller kids behind to search the safer parts of the base, she suited up and led a group of slightly older kids, ones that were willing to listen to her, out onto the trash fields. She had thought, hoped that their suits might contain some form of locator that could expedite their search. But The Bomb told her in a trembling and distracted voice that none of them had been able to get the main monitoring and communication system working since the old foreman had opened a vein several years back. So they were stuck with old-fashioned methods.

The surface of the accreted waste had never been mapped, the children having never seen the need, but there were general regions that they were all familiar with. She divided the older kids into groups of three and four and assigned them to specific directions, reminding them to take care and not overextend their search before returning to base to refill their supply of oxygen and water. Forming a team with Spike, Sandri’s messenger from when she awoke, and a boy named Lock, she began searching the narrow wedge of trash between the base and the gravity pocket where she’d established her observatory. They walked along carefully, turning over loose piles of garbage, looking for any signs of recently collapsed debris. Her observatory was empty with no sign that anyone had been in there since Sera had last left it. They removed their helmets to replenish their oxygen and rehydrate, drinking their stale water in tense silence. Then they continued on, spreading out into the untouched fields of trash beyond her observatory. It made no logical sense but Sera found that they all shouted Acid’s name into their comms, their voices taking on a desperate edge the further they got from the safety of the base.

She had no way of knowing exactly how long they walked, heads bent to the ground, stopping occasionally to overturn some faded and long-forgotten piece of furniture or mound of ancient tampons looking for signs of life. She kept a watchful eye on her oxygen meter and called out to the others, telling them to head back to the observatory when it approached the halfway point. Turning around, a flash of red caught her eye. She rushed forward, stumbling as she ran towards the capsized shell of a speeder they’d passed by only minutes ago. Grabbing hold of the lower edge of the door frame, she lifted with all her might, the empty husk unbelievably heavy in the rogue knot of gravity pulling towards the moon’s core. She screamed inarticulately for help, the other two rushing to her side and lending their strength. They heaved, lifting it enough that Sera could rest the frame on her shoulder while Lock and Spike dug through the rubble beneath. But she didn’t have to look to know that they were already too late and she sobbed in the privacy of her helmet as they revealed the crushed and broken body of little Nadi Svita.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final part of what was supposed to be Chapter 5 before it turned Long. This past month has been a little busy (I feel I said that the last time I posted something here), so I'm only half happy with how this chapter turned out. Back to Bastila for the next chapter! Whenever I start to write it!
> 
> Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone and here's hoping that 2021 is a not-terrible year

Sera returned Nadi’s body to his parents. Mitri couldn’t bring himself to face them, locking himself in a store room and refusing all comfort or food. Sera could still hear his desolate wailing when they returned to the base carrying their dreadful cargo ringing in her ears. She packed Nadi as neatly as she could into the cleanest box she could find, breaking down again when she came to his little stuffed salish. He had had it with him when he went out that day.

For once, no one complained when she announced her intention to take a flyer down to the planet’s surface by herself. It was midday when she reached the village, the traitorous weather almost pleasant, certainly the most beautiful day she’d experienced since she got there. The village was bustling, everyone hard at work, an almost fevered hubbub filling the air. She received many a hard look walking through the village center pulling the box behind her on the smoothest sled she could fashion on short notice. Sera realized with a start that they were all understandably pissed off at waking up to a ransacked village this morning. Their stupid raid felt like a lifetime ago now.

After several false turns, and getting spat on when she stopped to ask for directions, Sera found herself outside Mitri and Nadi’s home. She raised her fist to knock and had to stop, grief seizing her as it hit her again what she was there to do. She stood frozen, trembling with poorly contained tears. Tightening her grip on the sled until it hurt, she focused on the pain, letting it push aside all other thoughts. For now, anyway. Taking a massive breath, she held it, then let it out slowly, rapping her knuckles on the door.

It took a while for anyone to answer, the lively sounds of a happy family engrossed in the business of their lives threatening to undo her again. Sera heard Lina Svita pull herself away from her daughter’s attention, laughing at something a deep male voice said before opening the door with a face bright and warm like the day outside.

“Outsider, I didn’t think we’d ever see you again,” she said smiling. “Although, I’ve heard you’ve become quite the local, terrorizing the village in the night and all.” She chuckled merrily at her neighbours’ misfortune.

She must have seen something in Sera’s expression because her smile faltered, eyes flicking uncertainly to the box at Sera’s side.

Sera swallowed, not knowing what the hell to say or how to even start.  _ How would I want to hear about my kid’s death? I wouldn’t. I just fucking wouldn’t. _ “There’s been an accident,” she said as steadily as possible. “Mitri is fine.”  _ Sort of. _ “But--” She stopped, feeling tears welling up within her, not knowing if she could continue. Lina stared at her with wide, apprehensive eyes. “But Nadi--”

“Tefi!” Her voice had a taut, panicked edge to it as she screamed into the house. “Tefi, come quickly!”

A tall man appeared in the doorway bearing an upsetting resemblance to his youngest son. He glanced questioningly between the two of them, then to the box, squaring his shoulders and standing protectively over his wife when he noticed her distress. Inabi and Lana peeked anxiously around his legs while he frowned down sternly on Sera, daring her to make a wrong move. But there was something naked and brittle in his gaze and his jaw was tight as though waiting for a blow. Sera’s heart felt like lead in her chest. Like a great ball of lead that had cracked in two and plummeted through her insides.

“Ma’am, may we come inside?” Sera pleaded softly. “I don’t think we should talk about this in public.”

Lina turned from her and walked inside without a word, back rigid, gait swift and unnatural. Her husband stood for a moment, arms crossed, staring Sera down. Then he abruptly stepped aside and gestured for her to come in. Sera ducked her head and reached for the sled, easing it over the threshold as gently as possible, careful to not let it jostle as she dragged across the floor.

The small family arrayed itself around her. Lina had her arms tightly folded across her chest, vulnerability giving way to a defensive pugnacity. Tefi Svita stood as he had at the door, strong and unbreakable but looking lost in the depths of his eyes. The two girls stood uncertainly beside their parents, knowing something was up but not knowing exactly what. They looked like they were about to cry, little Inabi already sniffling around her fist while Lana clutched her to her side.

Sera inhaled through her nose, feeling like all the air had been squeezed out of her lungs. She laid a hand on the sad little box.

“I’m sorry. Nadi is dead.”

A sob escaped Inabi before being cut off when she buried her head in her sister’s shoulder. Tefi blanched beneath his fur, doubling over as though he’d been punched in the stomach. Lina bristled, quivering with rage and hurt.

“ _ What did you do? _ ”

Sera flinched. “We, we believe that he was out exploring the far fields of the moon on his own when an anomaly in the moon’s artificial gravitational field collapsed the garbage he was standing on,” she said with as much clarity and equilibrium as she could muster. “He was crushed by the remains of a speeder.”

“Well, what were you doing at the time?” Lina threw out, the tightly wound anguish within her unravelling in a messy explosion of pain. Tefi lumbered forward, wrapping his arms around his wife. “How do you even know that’s what happened? You don’t  _ know  _ that that was my little boy!” She was shaking by the end, face wet with tears as she pleaded her case against reality.

“Ma’am, I was there. I helped retrieve his body,” Sera said, her voice cracking. “I wish with everything in me that it wasn’t so but--”

“I want to see it,” Lina demanded suddenly.

This froze Sera to the spot. “Ma’am, are you sure that’s wise?” she said grief stricken, hoping to dissuade her as gently as possible.

“I want to see it,” Lina enunciated in clipped tones.

Tefi tightened his arms around her but there was a wild and savage glint in her eyes. The two young girls held onto each other, wide, frightened eyes darting back and forth between the adults. Sera ducked her head and stood back, unwilling to fight against her anymore. Lina glared fiercely and pulled out of the protective circle of her husband’s embrace, hiking her skirts up as she knelt in front of the little box. Sera swallowed, knowing all too well the sight Lina was about to be subjected to. She wrapped her arms around herself, watching helplessly as Lina opened the rickety clips and lifted the lid. The other woman’s eyes went wide, skin turning ashen beneath her fur. She clapped a hand over her mouth, making a keening sound that cut right through Sera’s soul. Tefi reached her first, gently prying her shaking hands off the lid and holding her close while tears streamed down his face. Sera reached out to lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. Lina struck out, slapping Sera’s hand away.

“Why didn’t you do something?” she wailed. “You’re an adult, even if you are an outsider! Why didn’t you… Why couldn’t you… My poor little boy!”

She crumpled in on herself, howling out her grief in great wracking sobs. The two girls stayed huddled in a tiny, lonely pile in the corner of the room. Tefi wiped his face against his shoulder before looking up at Sera.

“I’m sorry, outsider,” he said. “I think you should go.”

Sera looked around the little family, one son dead, the other in self-exile from grief and shame. And her standing there. Intruding on their tragedy. She nodded once and let herself out, heart sitting heavy and desolate in her chest. It made her own problems seem so small, to have a loved one ripped away when your back is turned.

“Fuck’s sake.” She ran a hand over her remaining eye as the dam within her broke and she sobbed, walking blindly through the town.

“False tears won’t help you, outsider.”

Sera looked up through bleary eye at the hard voice. The older woman, Anasha, was standing directly in Sera’s path. She would have walked straight into her if the other woman hadn’t spoken.

“I’m not… They’re not false,” Sera protested weakly, hearing a slight whiny note in her own voice.

“I don’t care about your excuses, you filthy wastrel!” The other woman was quivering with passion. “I’ll not have you truck with a pack of bastards and layabouts running rampant through our village and think you can just come waltzing back whenever you feel like it.”

Sera let out an exasperated breath. “They’re just  _ kids _ . In a shit situation. Not a threat to galactic stability, come on.”

Anasha’s face tensed in anger. “They’re tearing everything to shreds! Running around taking everything as they please without ever giving anything back, without ever thinking of their duty to their parents and kin! Do you know,” she said, wagging her finger for emphasis, “Arkav Vichena has not been able to run his farm at full capacity since half his workforce ran off to play bigshot on a pile of stinking garbage! And then they dare to come back, pinching food they had no hand in producing, stealing the sweat of other people’s brows! But no,” she sneered, “they’re just  _ kids _ in a  _ shit situation _ .”

Sera felt tired all of a sudden, thinking about the lack of food, the fear of the base’s atmosphere switching off without warning. The cold, the radiation. Little Nadi crushed to death while he was playing. “You don’t… You have no idea what it’s like up there.”

“Well, they’ve made their bed and now they must lie in it. I’ll not tolerate a single one of those brats to come back. Not until they’ve paid their debt in full. And I’ll not have  _ you _ preying on our sympathies either. You must find your own way!” Anasha said with finality.

“Look, I’m not…” Sera stopped, rubbing tears out of her eye with the heel of her hand. “That’s not why I came. Can you just  _ please _ do what you can to look after Lina and the rest of her family? They’ve had some bad news, the  _ worst _ news, and they could really use… Just please kind to them?”

Anasha’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly and she glanced in the direction that Sera had come from. Then she moved forward like a hovertrain and Sera had to stumble out of her way or else be bowled over.

“Just one thing,” Sera called after her.

She didn’t think the other woman was going to stop. Finally, she did, looking back at Sera disdainfully.

“What happens if the harvest fails?”

Anasha raised her chin defiantly. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern, outsider.” And then she was gone, turning her back on Sera as though she were nothing.

~~~

Life returned to a kind of normality. Mitri eventually emerged from seclusion, joining in with the games and adventures with the others as he had before. Almost. He was quieter, more serious, going off on his own occasionally or staring listlessly into the distance when he thought no one was watching. He hadn’t been back home again and the other boys didn’t seem to have the courage to ask.

Sandri had been… less than pleased with the way she had taken over the search for Nadi and the subsequent return of his body without clearing it with him first. He muttered darkly about usurpers and backstabbers in her vicinity. Not doing anything in particular. Just reminding everyone that he could if he wanted to. But it seemed as though he had not been unaffected by the death of one of his youngest liegemen, drinking more and more obviously. Sera was beginning to wonder if she’d ever seen him sober. It didn’t seem all that healthy and it was starting to worry her.

She didn’t see much of the two boys who had helped her excavate Nadi’s body, Spike and Lock. This wasn’t completely uncommon as she tended to spend most of her days either scavenging for parts or working on her telescope. Also, she was an adult and an outsider, so… She wondered how they were dealing with what they’d been through. If they’d been able to talk to someone they trusted about the experience of pulling the body of a peer out of the wreckage that had killed him. If it was keeping them up at night. She hoped they were okay. She didn’t think they were.

And as for Sera herself…

The 12-volt rail sparked, sending a painful jolt through the hand Sera was using to hold the board down.

“Fuck! Shit fucking piss dammit!” She spat out the frozen bit of… whatever that she’d been gnawing on and stuck her singed finger in her mouth. “Stupid fucking cock-sucking thing!”

It wasn’t supposed to be live. The power regulator she’d found was supposed to be keeping the electrical current running through the lights and the tiny fan she’d set up to circulate air but not through her main compute unit until she switched it over manually. The regulator must have glitched. Meaning cosmic radiation must have bypassed her rudimentary shielding. Meaning that the memory modules she’d painstakingly programmed had been corrupted. Again.

She put her face into her hands and screamed. It had taken  _ so long _ to get her programmes on there. Since she  _ still _ hadn’t found a way to get her datapad and the compute unit talking to each other properly, she was going to have to type  _ every single line of code. Again! _

Screaming helped to lessen her frustration. As did kicking at the compressed mound of pamphlets for a certainly now-defunct health spa that made up her floor.

“Fuck,” she muttered into her hands, voice scratchy from the persistent head cold she hadn’t been able to get rid of.

She was tired. The image of Nadi’s crushed body had joined her brain’s repertoire of nightly nightmares alongside the memory of her killing Wes. They had gotten worse since she’d last seen Bastila, slept by her side. Still meaningless nonsense, her nightmares had gotten more bizarre and mangled, making it harder for her to drift back to sleep once awoken. Not that she didn’t deserve to have her sleep disturbed every night for the rest of her life because of… everything.

Sera sighed and pulled herself as upright as the interior of the observatory would allow. The power regulator wasn’t going to fix itself no matter how much she thought hard thoughts at it.  _ Slept like shit too the last time Bastila was taken from me. Like claws tearing at my brain… _ Sera shook her head to dislodge the intrusive thoughts.  _ Don’t. Don’t think about Malak, don’t think about Bastila being captured. _ At least Bastila was safe and secure back home. Probably cursing her damned girlfriend for running off and leaving her with all the work but that was okay. It was better this way. Better that Sera was the one in a pickle and not anyone innocent.

The power regulator was buried under a carefully arranged stack of crumpled soda bottles and wadded up grocery bags round the back of her observatory. Had it not been thick enough to absorb the radioactive bombardment from space? Maybe the polyethylene had become too degraded after fuck knows how much solar exposure.  _ Shit, am I overdue for my radiation vaccine? Fuck, when did we go get them done? Was it before or after we did the Allatu Prime job? No, no, that’s what the gel is for. _ Sera straightened and rolled her neck, shaking her hands out to rid herself of the sudden panic that had overtaken her.  _ Brain full of fucking cobwebs… _ She slapped at her cheeks to wake herself up, succeeding only in smacking herself in the helmet. Sighing at herself, she got down onto her knees, groaning like an old lady as she bent to inspect the power regulator.

She was halfway through disconnecting the regulator from her electrical system and resetting it to proper functionality when a sound stood out from the normal audio landscape of the inside of her suit. The laboured breathing of another filtered through over the internal comm. Putting her makeshift shielding back in place, Sera stuck her head around the igloo of trash covering the support structure she was constructing. One of the larger kids came clambering over the unpicked fields surrounding her observatory, stopped and stood swinging his hands awkwardly in front of her door.

“Need an oxygen refill?”

The boy jumped. Some of the kids, the bigger kids that didn’t roam the exterior of the moon as much, didn’t quite grasp how the open comms worked, not on an instinctive level. Sera raised a hand to catch his attention.

“Uh, thank you, Killer. Much appreciated,” he said, flustered. It was the big guy who hung around War Leader a lot.

“Go on in and take what you need. Just mind the motherboard on the floor. I'm still working on that.”

“Actually there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Sera waited but he didn’t move and didn’t say anything further. She sighed.

“Okay, just give me a minute to clean things up here and I’ll meet you inside.”

The boy was sitting with his back against one of the sloping walls of her observatory, helmet off, knees held tight against his chest. He was glancing around idly, frowning curiously at the faded stack of pamphlets beneath him (“DIAL 555-202-0169 FROM YOUR NEAREST COMM TO  _ GET STARTED _ ON YOUR JOURNEY TO YOUR  _ TRUE SELF _ !  _ CALL TODAY!! _ ” Sera had read them  _ so many times _ hoping for something new to stimulate her brain but they  _ never changed _ ). The cramped interior looked a  _ lot _ smaller with another person in it. Sera removed her own helmet and folded herself down opposite him, the space so narrow she could have reached out and swatted him if she wanted to.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

“We, uh, that is, the War Leader is planning an excursion to retrieve some information. Are you interested in helping?”

“I dunno. That’s not a whole helluva lot to go on, kid,” she said, reaching for her unfinished wad of frozen whatever. “This an excursion off-planet? Or off-moon, rather?”

He eyed her with a look of politely masked disgust as she popped the nameless thing back in her mouth. “Not off-planet. He’s…” He paused as if uncertain if he should continue. “He’s planning on breaking into the King’s treasure room.”

Sera frowned. "Wasn't that was just a rumour?”

The big guy shook his head. “No rumour. The War Leader followed the King one day when he was… out of sorts but was unable to get inside then. He’s been seeking out an alternative entry ever since.”

“Okay, not to be rude to a child asking me for help,” she said around the slowly thawing thing, “but what’s in it for me? I’m not interested in your treasures.”

“His treasure room is where the King keeps his maps.”

Sera stopped chewing. “I thought he didn’t have any,” she said after a long moment.

“He only says that. I don’t know why. But he must have some way of picking a destination for our longer raids.”

“Huh.” Sera started chewing absentmindedly again, turning this new bit of information over in her mind.

“So, are you interested? He means to set off later today.”

Sera looked at her compute unit, in pieces, months away from even being close to completion. “Yeah, why not.”

~~~

“You know, I’m surprised War Leader asked for my help.”

The long lunar day had progressed further towards sunset this close to the base, rather than the weeks long midday at her observatory that was currently fucking with Sera’s circadian rhythm. Long, pitch-black shadows stretched out beneath them as the sun crept ever so slowly towards the horizon. Down in the village, they would have appeared as little more than a slim, grubby sliver in the sky. Unless it was still daytime down there. Sera had lost track.

The boy took a long time replying. “Um. Why do you say that?”

“Uh… No reason.”  _ So he hasn’t said anything about that little scene the night of the raid. _ “I just don’t think he likes me very much.”

“What? No, no,” he said lightly. Too lightly. At that moment, they crested the last mound on the back approach to the base, War Leader coming into view waiting for them. Sera didn’t need to see him to know that she was being scowled at.

_ Ah. _

The big guy coughed self-consciously. He held up a hand. “Just give me a moment.”

He scuttled off. Sera crossed her arms, shifting her weight on her legs to find a more comfortable position to wait in. There seemed to be a heated argument going on between the two just out of comm range. War Leader was shaking his head and gesturing furiously while his friend pleaded and placated. But the big guy seemed to be gaining ground. Sera turned away when she saw the smaller boy leaning into a hand laid tenderly against the side of his helmet. Not long after, she heard the bigger boy entering her comm range. She turned to see him excitedly gesturing for her to join them while War Leader glared at her stonily.

“I presume Meat Head’s told you about what I’m planning to do,” War leader said a touch sullenly as soon as Sera was within comm range.

“Just in a broad sense,” Sera said, a little breathless as she clambered over the uneven garbage. She seemed to be tiring a little more easily these days. “He didn’t give me the why though.”

Sera heard War Leader huff over the comm. “I don’t see why that’s important. You want to leave, he has star charts, what more do you need to know?”

“Pardon me for being cynical, especially since you’re twelve, but it’s never a bad idea to know why people want you to do things. That’s my tip for you today. You’re welcome.”

“I don’t actually  _ need _ your help, you know? I could just go all by myse--”

The bigger kid, Meat Head, cleared his throat abruptly, cutting his friend off.

Now that she was closer, Sera could see War Leader looking shamefaced.

“The King has lost his edge,” he said a little reluctantly. “Once upon a time the threat of his temper was enough to keep everyone in line. Nobody would have even thought about running around in the far fields on their own for fear of what the King would have done to them. Now he drinks all day and the others all do as they please. They need  _ order _ . If I can get my hands on those maps,  _ I _ can give that to them.”

“Kid,” Sera said gently, feeling deeply upset, “what happened to Nadi was a tragic, awful accident and I don’t think Sandri being even more of a tyrant would have stopped him doing what he wanted.”

War Leader’s mouth narrowed into a thin line. “You are an outsider. You don’t know our ways.”

“You don’t think that maybe,” she persisted, “what all of you kids need most is to leave this gang thing behind and go back home to your parents? Let them do their job and look after you?”

The young boy’s eyes flashed. Next to her, Meat Head cleared his throat furiously, sounding like he was going to cough up a lung.

“I will  _ never _ allow any single one of us to be dragged back to that village! I would burn the whole place to the ground if I could!” He was quivering as he said it.

“You  _ can’t _ look after everyone! There’s only one of y--”

“Enough of this!” he said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. “I mean to steal the King’s star charts, not waste my breath debating with the likes of you! Now, are you coming with or not?”

Sera looked to Meat Head for support but he was just giving her a look that said ‘shut up’. She threw her hands up in defeat. “Fine. Is it just us three going?”

“Just you two,” Meat Head said, casting a quick glance at his friend. “If we’re both gone, people will notice that something is amiss. I need to stay in the base so nobody suspects what the War Leader is planning.”

Sera cocked her head. “We’re not going through the base?”

“It’s too risky,” War Leader said, still sounding a little tense. “The others would snitch on us before we got anywhere near the central ship. We need to go over and enter in round the back. I’ve…” He looked a little uncertainly suddenly. “I’ve found a way in but…”

“But it’s too dangerous to go in on your own,” Meat Head said, eyes boring into the younger boy insistently. It sounded as though they’d had this argument before. “I’ll not allow it,” he finished softly.

“I-in any case,” War Leader said, unable to meet his friend’s eyes, “We’ll go along the outside until we get to the entrance I found. Then we just need to retrieve the maps and then we can do whatever we want. Okay?”

“Sounds good to me,” Sera said slowly. The two kids perked up. She held up a hand. “Just one thing…” They both groaned, War Leader slumping his shoulders and rolling his eyes, looking like a twelve year old for the first time since Sera had met him. Sera suppressed a grin. “What about our oxygen? My tank’s pretty empty as is and I don’t think it’ll last me a long journey.”

War Leader groaned loudly at the sky in frustration. “We can do that along the way! Now let’s go!” He turned and stomped off without looking to see if Sera was following, grumbling under his breath.

~~~

It wasn’t far to their first checkpoint; a tiny hole excavated into a small mountain of used sanitary items that seemed to characterize this side of the main base, just big enough to stick your head and shoulders inside. Sera took a deep breath and screwed her eye up tight before taking her turn. Even with all that she had gotten used to of late, things that she would never have even contemplated before, sticking her head in a small, dark hole composed almost entirely of ancient bodily functions was still just a touch out of her comfort zone.

They continued on mostly in silence, with only the occasional warning for a loose patch of garbage or gravity unexpectedly sucking at their boots. War Leader had to grab Sera’s shoulder several times to stop her walking into a danger her lopsided field of vision couldn’t see. After the fifth time and a grumpy complaint from her companion that he would have been quicker on his own, Sera took more care observing the dim environment, twisting her head this way and that until she felt her head was going to pop off her shoulders. That was how she spotted it, glinting in the thin sliver of sun still visible on this side of the moon. Sera cackled in delight, forgetting that she had company with her, and darted forward to snatch the thing up. She felt War Leader grab the back of her suit as she bent and scooped the rotary motor out from under a tangled mess of wires, laughing in maniacal triumph when it was revealed to be whole and seemingly unbroken.

“We are not here on a scavenger hunt!” War Leader snapped.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been looking for one of these to make my antenna turn on its own for ages!” she babbled excitedly. “With  _ this _ ,” The motor caught the sunlight and gleamed brightly as she shook it, “I’m one step closer to completing my telescope. You think I’m going to pass up an opportunity like that?”

“We don’t  _ need _ your stupid telescope now!” he said, irritation simmering beneath the surface. “That’s what the maps are for!”

“True. But we don’t have them yet,” she said, stowing the precious motor in the weathered grocery bag she used to carry her datapad. “And even if they are exactly what we want them to be, we still might need additional astronomical data to safely make a journey to the nearest star system. I mean, look at that!” She flung a hand out, tracing the arc of the galaxy above their heads, vivid and all-encompassing in the marginal atmosphere. “That stupid bullshit is several hundred parsecs deep! Do you have  _ any idea _ how pissed I will be if we miss our destination because our angle in relation to the disk is just a _little bit_ off? If I was interested in making wild guesses, I would just load up a flyer and fly  _ straight _ that way,” she stabbed a finger in the rough direction of the galactic center, “until I ran out of food and water and hope my corpse hit Coruscant and not wind up floating for all eternity light years above it. Or fry myself flying right through a nebula.” She flapped her hand angrily at the stars. “I would like some solid options!”

War Leader was quiet for a moment. “That’s really where all the people are?”

He said it softly with a quiet note of wonder in his voice. Sera glanced over at him. He was staring up at the dense cluster of stars that Sera had pointed at as if he had never seen the sky before.

“Kinda. Really there’s people spread all over the galaxy doing their own thing but the deepest concentration is clustered around the Galactic Core. If you look there,” She leaned closer to the boy and pointed to what she estimated the correct group of stars were, “that bright spot there is Coruscant, sitting right in the center of our galaxy.” She paused. “Technically, it’s not  _ actually _ in the center of the galaxy, they just use it on the maps too-- That’s besides the point. Completely covered in city. Lots of people from all over everywhere…”

“Okay.” War Leader turned away, his face a pale pink beneath his helmet, and resumed walking briskly towards the next checkpoint.

Sera followed suit. “There’s this really big zoo that we didn’t get to go to, you know, my girlfriend and I, the last time we were there. A lot of really good food there too, some of the best in the galaxy.  _ Horribly _ expensive. Couldn’t afford it even if I were saving up for…”  _ I’m going to miss our anniversary. _ “Uh. Um. Anyway. Anyway, the food stalls are pretty good there if you know where to look. You get these vegetables on a stick fried in batter that they serve with a sauce and you eat it right there in the street that are really good. Really crunchy, this real burst of flavour when you bite in.” War Leader picked up his pace and Sera trotted to catch up. “The station where we live isn’t half bad either. There’s this curry place in the lower sectors that I’ve been dying to try but we haven’t had time, what with work and everything.” Her gaze drifted to the sky, eye unconsciously fixing on a particular point. “Our local bakery is pretty good too,” she said distantly. “They have good breakfast pastries. Fancy knotted pastry filled with custard. Little fruity things that Bastila likes, reminds her of her childhood. Perfect for a day off…”  _ Dammit… _

War Leader whirled around. “I don’t want to hear anything about your stupid life!” Then he ripped his helmet off, right there out in the open.

“Ah!” Shit, had she annoyed him to the point of suicide?

But his eyeballs didn’t pop out of his skull, blood spewing from his mouth as his lungs ruptured. He just stood there glaring at her. Sera gingerly raised her hands to the release clamps of her helmet, keeping her eyes locked on the kid in case this was some kind of trick she hadn’t thought of. She flicked the clamps up, ready to seal her helmet back on her head if something went wrong. Musty air filled her helmet. War Leader rolled his eyes at her.

“Huh.” She pulled her helmet off, standing bareheaded under the frigid emptiness of space.  _ What a bizarre feeling _ .

“Listen to me,” War Leader said intently. “We are here to do one thing and one thing only. I don’t want to hear any more about your precious girlfriend or what life is like out there or any of it! I just want to get these stupid maps, do you understand?”

Sera nodded, a little bemused at being lectured by a twelve year old. “’Kay. Wait, are we here already?” she said when the kid got to his knees and began rummaging in the trash. All she got was a withering look. She shrugged. “Oh, alright.” Turning away as he worked, she stretched her hand out, feeling for the edges of the pocket of safety. The whole area was completely indistinguishable from the hostile landscape surrounding it. “Say, how did you find this place anyway?”

He was already waist-deep in the hole he’d excavated by the time she turned back. “I was… That’s none of your business! Now, are you coming with or not?”

He slipped out of sight without waiting for an answer. Sera shrugged and clambered down more slowly, feeling old and stiff. Gravity shifted as she passed through the opening, pulling her boots awkwardly to the side of her body. She wriggled and kicked to right herself. Her foot connected with something soft, eliciting a pained grunt.

“Watch it!” War Leader said, giving her a hard swat, then grabbing her by the ankles. Sera found herself being dragged through stinking garbage on her stomach before thumping face first onto a floor thick with dust from a not inconsiderable height. She opened her mouth to complain and sneezed, over and over until her eye ran and her face was gummed up with snot.

“Fuck.” She rolled over and sat up, peering blearily at the buckled corridor lit dimly by their suit’s shoulder lights. It looked pretty shit as fair as spaceship corridors went. There wasn’t a sum of money in the galaxy that could have convinced Sera to travel aboard a ship in such a state but it was recognizably a spaceship. Which was more than could be said about the kids’ base that allegedly formed part of the same structure.

“So this is it, huh?” She looked around for something to wipe her face on, gave up and reluctantly used her sleeve, smearing dusty black snot in a wet line down the arm of her suit.

War Leader wasn’t looking at her.  _ Probably for the best. _

“Yes. I’ve, I’ve never ventured further than the end of this corridor.” The boy swallowed. “I, there wasn’t enough time. I had to get back. The others would have noticed that I was gone.”

“Hmm.” Sera groped blindly through the hole to the exterior for her grocery bag. “So… And this is just me clarifying, zero judgment whatsoever… You don’t actually know if this section of the ship leads to your King’s treasure room?”

The kid stared at her, going pale, the bright red beneath his fur. “I know _ exactly _ …! Are you trying to start a fight with me?” he spluttered.

Sera held up her hands placatingly. “No, no. I just wanted to make sure…”

“I know where we are!”

“...That we weren’t going to wind up running in circles. I never meant to imply…”

“We’re in the right place! To get to his treasure room, the King has to travel  _ deep _ into the center of the base,” He gestured as he spoke, pantomiming the layout of the base, “past where we all stay, lower than he allows anyone else to go.  _ We _ have travelled over the outside of the moon to  _ above _ where the treasure room should be. Now we just have to find it!”

Sera gave him a thumbs up. “Okay.”

He stared at her dumbfounded, looking as though he had a million things he wanted to say to her and didn’t know where to start. She gestured towards the empty corridor with an open hand.

“After you.”

War Leader threw his hands up, letting out a squeaky yell of frustration. Sera let him. It was good to be able to express one’s irritation with life and the universe when one needed to.

The next corridor was equally thick with dust, their boots leaving a clear track for them to follow back to their entry point if they got turned around. Sera had cracked the first service panel they came across open, hoping to get some kind of lighting system working. Even emergency lighting would be better than the thin beams of light from their suits bouncing around all over the place. But it was to no avail. To be sure, the switches and the wires all seemed to still be there but the light fittings were simply gone. Everything about the place gave the air of what it in truth was; a decommissioned ship, probably merchant of some kind, being stripped and then junked. The artificial gravity and atmosphere had in all likelihood only been left functional to allow the junkyard workers to do their job.

The doors were a little more hit and miss. Most were jammed open. This was fine. They went through each one to briefly explore whatever room or corridor that lay beyond, although there was a brief argument about them not  _ needing _ to go through, they were only there for  _ the maps _ . Sera won the argument with the point that they didn’t know where any of the rooms might lead to but conceded the point that she didn’t need to look under all the furniture for hidden items. Problems only started to arise when they came across more and more doors that were closed. They ignored them at first. No point in wasting time on a locked door when it was just as likely to lead somewhere accessible via another door. Then they reached a dead end. What looked like a gutted supply closet. They debated their options and decided to force the last door they had passed by rather than walk half an hour to reach an unexplored open door. Kicking didn’t do much other than tire them both out and confirm that there was empty space on the other side if the hollow sound of their thudding was anything to go by. Sera got her tools out, really just various bits of metal and plasteel that functioned close enough to real tools, and removed her gloves to avoid nicking her suit when she ripped the wall panel off. War Leader leaned against the wall and removed a lump of dried meat from his pack.

“How long is this going to take?” he said, tearing off a sizable chunk with his teeth.

Sera’s stomach rumbled enviously. She took a sip of stale water to quiet it. “Can’t really tell until I get a proper look at the mechanism.”  _ Wonder if they’ve got anything in the kitchen here. Dammit, I need to find some real food soon. _

“We can’t afford to…”

“I know, I know. If this takes too long, we’ll try another door.” She jammed her fingers under the gap she’d created and rocked the panel back and forth until it popped off the wall. The layout of the door mechanism was foreign but logical after a few moments poking around. A thought popped into her head.

“Um, so you know I bring my girlfriend up a lot?”

War Leader sighed. “I thought I said I wasn’t interested.”

“No, what I mean is, you know I’m a girl too, right?” She glanced over at him. “Like, the woman that I’m in a relationship with is the same gender as me? And there’s nothing wrong with it? Everyone’s okay with it?”

“They only don’t care that you’re a girl because you’re an outsider and no one expects anything good from you anyway,” he said, rolling his eyes. “It wouldn’t be the same for one of us. It just wouldn’t.”

Sera cocked her head and frowned sympathetically. “I know that it’s useless self-indulgence, according to some, but they’re wro--”

“I said I’m not interested!”

“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands in surrender. He settled back against the wall, shoulders hunched while he scowled at nothing. Sera turned her attention back to getting the door open, sticking her hand inside the cramped space of the wall and feeling around awkwardly for the lock catch.

“I’m sorry what I said earlier,” she said softly after a moment. “About all of you going back to your parents. I know that that isn’t exactly… ideal for everyone and I’m sorry that I brought it up without thinking.”

He didn’t respond, standing stiff like a statue.

“You know, when we get these maps… I’ll still need to talk to some people to sort things out, discuss things with my girlfriend,” she clarified, “but you’re always welcome at our place if you need somewhere to stay.”

The kid snorted. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that you don’t have to go through life alone!” she pleaded. “The galaxy is a big and dangerous place. Even if I can’t help you, I will make sure one of my friends will, make sure you’re fed and clothed and schooled and taken care of. No matter what happens, I want you to be able to live your life the way that you want, to be whoever you want to be.”

War Leader barked out a laugh. “Why should I listen to you? What do you know about anything? You are a murderer,” he sneered. Sera flinched like she'd been slapped. “Who lives in the trash and eats garbage all day. What makes you think you have the right to have an opinion about  _ anything _ ?”

“You’re right. I don’t deserve anything.” Her voice quavered.  _ Shit. Don’t fucking lose it in front of other people! _ “I don’t deserve to get home. I don’t deserve to see Bastila again or be a parent or have any kind of happiness in my life or anything. You’re right not to listen to me!” The last came out as a sob, tears spilling down her cheek. She clamped her mouth tightly shut and turned her sighted eye away from the boy but nothing could stop the tremors wracking her body. She shot up.

“I’m sorry, I need to check the other conduit.”

She strode off, almost ran really, without checking to see if he bought her flimsy excuse. Finding the first open room, she crumpled into a ball, holding her head as she cried.  _ Stupid. _ She thumped her head against the wall.  _ Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. _ The tears flowed unchecked down the right side of her face, her bone dry left cheek and hollow eyesocket a cruel reminder that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. That she was a monstrous individual that chewed up lives and spat them out broken and spent. She dug her fingers into her flesh, wanting to tear herself to pieces. The pain was only a tiny fraction of what she deserved for all she had done.

But she couldn’t stay there huddled against the wall forever and there were only so many tears within her. She still had to help War Leader get away from this place anyway, hopefully help with the food situation that seemed to be happening down in the village. She stood, tracing a matching line of snot and tears down her other sleeve, and walked back to where she had left the kid, feeling absolutely flat. He hadn’t moved and seemed content to ignore her meltdown much to Sera’s gratitude.

“Right, this shouldn’t take long.” She reached back inside the wall and depressed the locking catch, pulling her hand quickly out of the way as the door sprang open.

They continued on in silence, walking as far apart as the narrow corridor would allow. They made fair progress, something about the way the rooms were laid out off the corridor tickling Sera’s brain, making her think they were getting close. Another closed door appeared ahead. Sera moved immediately to the panel on the wall, confident she knew how to handle this problem now. She repeated her process, squeezed her hand between wires and support struts and the tight, jagged surface of the inside of the wall, depressed the catch and… nothing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

She pulled her arm out and shoved herself into the shallow hole, twisting her shoulder awkwardly to illuminate the interior of the wall while the panel bracket pressed into the side of her face. Finding nothing and her face and shoulder starting to hurt, she was about to advocate for ripping the entire wall apart by force when light from her suit caught the corner of a second locking catch at the base of the door, secured in the open position. Contorting her spine uncomfortably until the shoulder light shone upwards at the correct angle, she looked for the third catch that logic dictated was at the top of the door. And there the fucker was, blocking their progress like an asshole. Muttering obscenities under her breath, Sera stuck her arm back into the opening and reached in vain for the offending catch, stopping to remove the bulky top half of her spacesuit to allow herself to insert more of her shoulder into the wall. She clawed and grasped for the catch but it was to no avail. She was too short. Thoroughly pissed off, Sera depressed the middle catch with her right hand and slapped her left hand to the outside wall, pulling the top catch roughly flat with the Force.

“Ah!”

A blinding headache tore through her skull, almost distracting her from pulling her hand out of the way as the door snapped open.

“What? What’s the matter?” War Leader said, finally paying attention to her again.

She held up a hand. “No, it’s nothing. Just…” Wait. Was she about to have another seizure? Sera froze, paused mid-motion in the process of pinching her nose. No, nothing seemed to be happening. Or had she already had one, blacking out and waking up without ever knowing what had happened? Fuck, how many times had she come close to snuffing out her own life unbeknownst to her out on the trash fields. No, no, she would have noticed. She felt like shit after her duel with Sandri all those weeks… Sera stopped. How long ago had that been?  _ Week before last? No, that can’t be right. We had the, the funeral for Nadi round about then, right? Or was it the week before that? _ Everything seemed to be blurring into one, indistinguishable mass of time. Fuck, how long had she been sitting in her observatory all on her own? She’d had her period shortly after waking up in the base --  _ That had been a blast to deal with around a bunch of squeamish teenage boys  _ \-- but she couldn’t remember having another one after that. Was she simply not due yet? That seemed increasingly unlikely. Was her nutrition so fucked up that her cycle had simply stopped as her body shut down unnecessary functions to keep her vertical?

Sera squeezed her eye shut and rested her forehead against the wall, clutching her head to stop the thoughts cascading endlessly through her brain.

War Leader poked her shoulder. “Hey.”

Sera started. “No, no, I’m alright. I just…” She rubbed at her face. _Fucking losing it._ “I need to get away from this place soon.”

War Leader stared at her as if she’d said the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “Yeah? The sooner you start moving, the sooner you can be gone from here.” He waved his hand impatiently at the open door. “After you.”

“Right.” She pushed herself away from the wall and shook her limbs out to wake herself up. Shrugging her suit back on, she stepped through the door. Instantly, she knew that something was different about this room. The floor was free of dust and there were signs of recent life about the place. Squinting, her heart rate picked up as her brain recognized the space as the bridge of a ship. They’d found Sandri’s treasure room.

She heard War Leader’s breath hitch as he stepped into the room behind her.

“So this is it?” he whispered, voice trembling with awe.

“Looks like,” Sera replied equally quietly. She wasn’t sure if it was the culmination of all their struggles to escape this system lending an air of sanctity to the room or simply the fact that they were truly sneaking around another’s private space now but it felt wrong to speak any louder than was needful. War Leader moved with purpose towards the prow of the ship, ancient transparisteel holding back tonnes of garbage from crushing the main computers underneath. Leaving him to it, Sera poked around at the banks of computers lining the walls, surprised when they powered on without a hitch. A system layout popped up on a monitor.

“Huh.”

“What?” War Leader said distractedly from the other end of the room.

“No, it’s the atmospheric controls.” She flicked through the options displayed on the screen. “I think it uses some kind of low-power loop to determine where needs fresh air. If I had Bastila with me, I think we could stabilize the atmosphere across the whole moon. And before you complain,” she said, cutting him off, “she’s my business partner, so that was work talk, not personal talk.”

“Hmph!”

She returned to the main screen, searching for the ship’s schematics. “I wonder if the gravitational controls work the same way…”

“None of that is going to matter soon. Soon we’re going to be _ far away _ from here and will never have to think about this stupid planet ever again.”

Sera shrugged. “Fair enough.”

She pulled out a chair and sat down at the computer with a groan of relief. How long had it been since she’d sat on anything with proper lower back support?  _ Not much longer now and I can sit in as many shitty office chairs as I like. _ She browsed idly through what was left of the main systems, amusing herself with a little one-button game that someone had sideloaded into their console. Behind her, War Leader muttered something too low for her to make out.

“What you say?” she said softly.

“This can’t be it. This  _ can’t _ be all of it! There must be some other map that I haven’t found yet!” He rushed to flick a neighbouring computer on, banging it impatiently when it didn’t boot up fast enough.

Sera spun around and sat forward, leaning her elbows on her knees. “What do you mean ‘there must be another map’?” she said slowly.

“We’ve been to all those places!” he said, not bothering to be quiet now. “There was nothing, absolutely nothing! The only thing we ever picked up was you!”

Sera ran a hand over her mouth, staring into the middle distance pensively as the boy ran back and forth between the computers becoming increasingly frantic.

“It’s not necessarily the end of the world,” she said after a moment. “I’ve worked with incomplete star charts before. We just need a point of reference. Maybe, maybe if we go back to where you found me…”

“Oh, yes. I’m definitely going to find something useful from a  _ massive _ hole in the ground. I’ll get right on it.” He moved to a computer on the far wall. “That rotten asshole. I’ll tear his guts out when I find out where he’s hidden--”

“There aren’t any other maps.”

They both jumped, whirling to where the voice had come from. Sandri was slouching in one corner with a jug in one shaking hand and a cup in the other. He jerked a thumb at an open air duct behind him, the wall below scuffed and dirty as though someone had used the duct to access the room on a regular basis.

“That big muscle head of yours is easy to read,” he said by way of explanation. His eyes were unfocused and he seemed to be using the wall for support. “Not that any of it matters any more.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sera saw War Leader tightening his grip on one of the chairs, jaw tense and eyes furious.

“What do you mean by that?” she blurted out, more to head off any chance of violence.

Sandri frowned. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said, filling his cup to the brim. “We’re stuck here.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping it won't take me too long to get the next part up but AAAAAAAAAAA! This part took me six months to complete... orz


End file.
